Clay Lacy Aviation’s location at Seattle Boeing Field is anticipating becoming the first aviation service provider in the U.S. to achieve Stage II registration under IBAC’s International Standard for Business Aviation Handling (IS-BAH). The voluntary set of global industry best practices for ground handlers is based around a core safety management system. The facility, which achieved Stage I under the standard just last year, is set to undergo a rigorous third-party inspection early next month, which if successful, would make it the first in the country to advance to the second level of the registry.

According to Terry Yeomans, IBAC’s IS-BAH program director, there are currently three approved Stage II registrations, which recently became available for the first time since the debut of the program in 2014: Sky Valet, Cannes-Mandelieu, France; SRC Aviation, New Delhi, India; and TAG Aviation, Farnborough, UK.

“All three locations have shown that the systems, processes and procedures assessed at Stage I are successfully maturing to provide outputs which can be used to continue to improve and fine tune safety performance of their own scope of ground handling activities,” he said, adding the program generally requires a span two years between audits. “The next two years will be used to further mature the systems with the aim to foster an embedded safety culture through the organization.”