DALTON AIRPORT – IMPROVING AIRPORT MANAGEMENT PROPOSAL
Airports are example of large, dynamic and complex systems which involves the management of facilities, functions and services that are directly related to various airline and aircraft activities. Towards improving the revenue of Dalton Airport for the fiscal year 2007/08 onwards, Dalton City Council will conduct an organization-wide restructuring.
Primarily, Dalton Airport shall use the Total Airport Management System (TAMS). Total Airport Management (TAM) is defined as the operational process-control of the entirety of aircraft-related activities. As an integrated airport management system, TAMS could be a point of interaction whereby the integration of the majority of the electronic information within the airport is probable.
TAMS comprises air traffic control administration, over flight billing, real-time apron management, handling agent, airport flight information display, gate allocation, automated warehouse, security systems, metrological systems, ground services, staff information via intranet, airport landing dues information, statistical and financial report, cash invoicing and non-aero invoices, passenger check-in, facility management, point of sale and apron services management.
Apart from assuring maximum flow of information intended for operations, management, security and control, TAMS supports Dalton Airport’s goal to provide cost-effective, efficient, quality operation for passengers, employees and residents within the vicinity as well. In addition, TAMS could continuously drive elements and interdependencies among key airport functions that include operations, engineering and maintenance, planning, administration and finance, commercial and legal within comprehensive workflow models. In effect, the information on different planning intervals will act on turn-around-cycles and enhance systems-to-systems capability of Dalton Airport.
Nonetheless, the implementation of the TAMS would be too costly as it requires prior establishment of multimedia virtual affiliate or multimedia domain as a host, or a highly-advanced infrastructural facility. To cut costs, since the latter is much more expensive than the latter, Dalton City Council could settle on choosing server domains and just pay for its services until the time that Dalton Airport builds its own facility. Difficulty on simulation configuration is another possible downside wherein subsystems could be degraded depending on the extent of functions optimization with respect to TAMS implementation, and it may blur with capacity-state of present operation.
Moving to relative lowly-technical endeavors, Dalton City Council should improve the airport’s promotion and advertising. Marketing-wise, Dalton Airport is lagging behind its key competitor. Dalton City Council and Dalton Airport will construct an actionable, full scale marketing plan that will be based on a ‘commercial airport approach’. This approach comprises commercial services, tourist services, conference services, logistics and property services and consulting services. The marketing plan will also embrace creative platforms on different promotional tactics such as advertisements, through television, radios, movies/theaters, magazines, newspapers and other printed materials and billboards. In addition, visual portals and the Internet will be also considered. Visual portals are train stations, walls on airports pathways, hotels, grocery stores, leisure parks and gym and technical utilities are online collaborations, POP displays, cyber kiosks and electronic advertisements.
Complementary services will be also made available. In the departure hall landside, gourmet shop, bars, restaurants and food court, hairdresser, thematic shops, fashion stores and news stands will be set-up and improved. On departure hall airside, the add-on facilities will be Duty-free shops, bars and restaurants, last minute duty-free shops, jewellery and money changer and on the arrival hall pharmacy, bars and restaurants, info point, hotel point, bank, florist car rental and others will be built.
However, the marketing plans are tended to be too expensive and virtually impossible to implement within a predetermined timeframe. Coordinating with different companies would pose particular legal compliances and requirements that might be difficult for the Council to provide or obtain.
To continue, Dalton City Council will have to improve the access to the airport. Since finding an alternate route would be difficult, the next best thing to do is cut the traveling time of the passengers. This can be done in two ways. First, Dalton Airport must have airbuses or cityflyers that will round within the vicinity to pick and take passengers to their city destinations. And second, the airport officials must coordinate with existing governmental and local transportation agencies. Both needed to have successful coordination, appropriate and legal.
Airport transportation actually comes in different types and Dalton Airport could explore all them as possible. Airbus and cityflyers can take passengers from airport to urban areas and vice versa. Taxis can take them anywhere to and from the airport on different routes and there are also private cars and rental cars and chauffeured vehicles. If there is, airport express or special trains that link airport with urban areas and subway in the least time possible.
The detriments of improving access to airport is central on the availability and provisions for ample parking which the airport may or may not provide at all due to time, space, financial and control constraints.
In effort to continuously support the growing awareness of the people regarding the ethical services, Dalton City Council will ensure aerodome certification in order to boost the airport’s performance. Certified Aerodome are subjected to inspection and required to operate in accordance with the Dalton Airport Operations Manual. [The manual too will be subjected to the periodic approval of the appropriate authority for sufficient changes that will come from aerodome safety inspectors.] Dalton City Council will act as overseer and monitoring body of the current condition of the airport and ensure that basic and regulated services are available to users. The things effecting certification are as follows: lighting, surfaces, signage, transition marking or lineage, zoning, wildlife, environmental, traffic and security in line with International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) regulations.
In lieu with this, Dalton City Council will conduct and implement different projects, plans and programs intended for the improvement of operations and services. First, there will be the airport maintenance plan. The areas of concern of this plan centers on operational surfaces, visual aids to navigation, radios, terminal building, mobile equipment and maintenance facilities, access roads and paved surfaces, signs and fencing, obstruction zoning, drainage and fire fighting equipment.
Second, Dalton Airport will be enforced to adopt a comprehensive Foreign Object Damage Control Program in order to increase the safety of airport operations and to reduce the maintenance costs by means of eliminating foreign objects hazards. This initiative will be accompanied by coordinating with units responsible for airside surface materials, airside traffic, airline, aircraft operations, climatic influences, groundside and nearby construction sites.
Third, runway condition reporting will be a priority. Reports must be based on tests conducted by the in-house mechanics and foreman in order to quantify the condition of the runway for pilots. Reports as well must be undertaken in any weather to inform flight operations of the condition of the runways and taxiways.
Fourth, the airport will conduct wildlife hazard assessment through formalized wildlife surveys including identification of hazardous wildlife species, general movements of the wildlife and attractants on and off the airfield, and recommend to resolve issues. In order for the initiative to fully commence, airport personnel will be trained.
Aside from this, Dalton City Council will, fifth, conduct an environmental impact evaluation consisting of major issues such as air and water quality, ambient noise level, ecological processes and natural environment values. To wit, airports are social stimulus for economic growth and upliftment of quality services to the public so it is a must to operate compatible with the environs.
Looking at the operational facilities, I can say that these are enough – fueling facility, storage shed, airport management and briefing centres, freight storage and flying school hangar – but, there is something missing, something that is fundamentally important, and could be a value adding endeavor and thus revenue-adding activity: an airport clinic. Airport clinics must be on the front line to combat diseases and these facilities must be prepared to treat passengers from all over the world. Though the majority of the patients would be airport employees, clinical services must be extended to baggage handlers who strain their backs, mechanics suffering from scrapes and burns, and pilots and flight attendants who picked up minor illnesses overseas. In some instances, airports which are under renovation, expansion or construction, there would be the possibility of cuts, bruises and broken bones that requires immediate treatment.
The downside of putting up such facility would be, of course, the cost, and eventual requirement for additional staff like resident doctor, nurses, nurse aids and the same population. To reduce the cost, Dalton City Council could coordinate with a public hospital to extend facilities and services to the airport or have a separate office for an in-house physician that must be available 24/7.
In terms of organization, this paper hereby proposes that there must be “a transition from passive management to proactive management, from open-loop management to closed-loop management, from individual to systematic management and from partial management to comprehensive management”. There are specific functions that must support management and supervision such as safety policies and safety objectives, safety education and training, document management, safety information management, risk management, investigation and handling of unsafe incidents, emergency response and oversight and audit of airport safety. In lieu, there must be additional staffs to support this agendum since the ten primary employees would not be sufficient enough to handle new functions and responsibilities.
Conversely, additional staff spells additional financial burden to the management in terms of remuneration. To make matters worse, Dalton Airport would have to invest on additional training and education. But in the long run, if the companies could continuously hone and motivate their people through empowerment, the benefits would all be inward since regularizing employees mean eliminating costs of recruiting and hiring. In addition, these people were already familiar with the basics of the company and so there would be the possibility of improved collaboration among them even between old employees and them and newcomers.
In terms of the financial management, Dalton Airport’s accounting system must respond to the needs of airport owners, governments and etc., airport managers and airport users. The revenues are derived from air traffic operations, ground handling, non-aeronautical activities, back and cash management revenue, grants and subsidies. To improve the financial system, there must be categorization, for example operation and maintenance, administrative overheads and capital costs. Cost center statements and service line statements must be also available that must be aligned with ICAO’s policies.
In sum, efforts to improve airport management are central to the introduction of technical as well as mechanical functions. These are TAMS that ensures effective flow of integrated informations, complementary services, airport transportations, ethically-driven programs, additional operational facility (e.g. clinic), changed management and improved financial management.
Reading 1
“Agenda Item 3: Airport Financial Management and Airport Charges on Air Traffic”
ICAO WARFM
October 2005
Reading 2
“Airport Clinics: On the Front Lines”
Terri Morrison and Wayne A. Canaway
11 February 2004
Reading 3
“Airport Marketing: Strategies to Cope with the New Millennium”
David Jarach
2005
Ashgate Publishing, Ltd
Chapters 3 and 4
Reading 4
“Bulletin 1: Best Practices-Surface Access to Airports”
p. 8
Reading 5
“China’s Implementation of SMS at Airports”
Working Paper – Assembly: 36th Session
September 17, 2007
Reading 6
“Total Airport Management”
http://www.eurocontrol.be/care-innov/public/standard_page/studies2001_dlr.html
Reading 7
“Airport Operations”
www.aerohabitat.org/link/02-05-2007%20-%20Airport%20Operations%20Certification%20Guidelines.pdf
Reading 8
“Airport Transportation”
http://www.12hk.com/xprt/AirportTransportation.shtml
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