Resilience in Small or Rural Airports - Coursework Example

Resilience in Small/Rural Airports Maurice Carbajal 21 March Resilience in Small/Rural Airports Introduction Due to the frequency and intensity of disasters in small and rural airports since the 1977 Tenerife airport tragedy in the Canary Islands, which recorded the highest single civil aviation disaster mortalities yet, when over 500 people perished in a collision between two Boeing 747 passenger planes, disaster resilience has gained significance as a pivotal conceptual approach in building capacity in such rural economies with the core objective of responding to similar disasters and recovering from their impact. Transport economy acknowledges that society’s core values cannot be wholly protected every time, and that various disruptions are likely to occur. Therefore, there is an intense and urgent need to learn how to manage and adapt to the risks in such a way as to minimize their impact and build resilience. In globalizing our airport transport, the security of the environment of rural airports is found to be shaped by a mix of dynamic emerging and continuing opportunities and challenges. Discussion Besides natural disasters, organized criminal acts have posed major challenges in the proper management of rural airports with criminal gangs that range from human to drug traffickers exposing such facilities to numerous risks. According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (2009) these gangs have for long utilized small airports to advance their illegal activities in the end making profits through facilities, money that is not formally injected in the economy to help maintain the airports and avert any possible disaster from improper safety systems. According to Dupree (2013), budget cuts have led the Federal Aviation Administration(FAA), to contemplate the closure of air traffic towers at smaller airports all over the United States. To put the discussion in context, it’s prudent to define disaster recovery which is the procedure, policy or process related to preparation for recovery and technological infrastructure continuation, which is significant to an organization after an anthropogenic or natural disaster occurs. It involves keeping all business functioning aspects active in the midst of disruptive events. In this case, private airports and small or rural airports must adopt functional systems that will help in recovery should a disaster occur. Throughout this paper we will seek to explore the risk resilience and disaster recovery in small or rural airports and private airports. Although airports authorities and aerodromes have put in place measures to ensure preparedness for emergencies, containing disasters in times of crises still remains elusive. This is supported by the fact that most small and rural airports fail to undertake regular drills, have limited stakeholder collaboration, limited participation and community involvement, inadequate resources such as medical aid and marine rescue, and many insufficiencies and inadequacies on regulation adherence. Even though small and private airports are normally prepared for some emergencies in various aspects, they still have a way to go. Subsequently, in order to enhance risk resilience and disaster preparedness and recovery, airports need to allocate more resources, conduct continuous public and staff awareness trainings, undertake regular drills, address staff welfare concerns, strengthen interagency coordination, ensure adherence to set standards and regulations, decentralize decision making, improve navigation, and establish aerodrome owned marine unit (Warhurst, 2006). The primary goal of risk resilience and disaster recovery measures in airports is to promote and foster the establishment and development of an efficient, safe, environmentally compatible, and dependable air transportation system. However, the multimodal and interconnected systems including aviation are still vulnerable to various natural risks and disasters. For example, it is estimated that there is a 99 percent chance of earthquake experience in California within the next 30 years. On the basis of this statistic alone, small airports in such a locality are expected to play a critical role in disaster recovery and response efforts should an earthquake strike. Today, the majority of transportation disaster planning focus on restoration of surface transport systems, however, the relationship between surface transport and airports is very crucial because in the event of destruction of surface infrastructure, movement from disaster zones become entirely dependent on air transport that is in this case facilitated by small airports. During Hurricane Katrina, which flooded New Orleans in 2005 for example, small airports in the neighboring states of Texas and Parts of Florida played a significant role not only in the rescue efforts but also in the distribution of much needed aid during disaster recovery phase. There is no particular coordinated statewide or regional plan of disaster recovery that describes the coordination of air and role of airports in major disaster response. This tragedy brought into focus the need to deliberate on disaster recovery in small and rural airports in areas that are disasters (Wong, 2008). Besides tragedies from natural causes, small/rural airports also pose major security threats to many nations with the United States taking lead. Much of the drugs coming in from the Mexican border and other criminal activities are facilitated by these airports because of the lack of adequate personnel and gear to detect and prevent these activities especially with the recent budget cuts facing most government departments in the United States. According to the U.S Department of Homeland Security, ensuring not only preparedness but also the resilience in the event of a disaster is critical to the security of the nation, economic vitality, public safety and health, and the way of life. Any particular disaster can significantly disrupt airport transportation and therefore needs to be addressed and treated with urgency. In the business involving airports, one needs to be ready for anything. Channels of communication are very important. Failure of network diversity where an airport facility relies entirely on one communication channel can lead to an occurrence of disaster should that system fail. Small and rural airports all over the world are very vulnerable and susceptible to climatic change impact. For example, rising temperatures, sea levels and changes in precipitation put airport operations and infrastructure are risks that they live with because of the slow pace of upgrades to cope with these dynamic conditions as compared to large airports for reasons that range from low traffic at these facilities to lack of adequate funds. Small airports therefore need to address this fast and urgently as well as create sustainability benefits in the process. The question is; what should be done to make small and rural airports more resilient? As expected, it is recommended that one looks at the problem holistically coordinate national, regional and international strategies. One is also expected to look beyond the infrastructure into institutional and information systems and knowledge (U.S. Department of Homeland Security, 2009). How then can small/ rural and private airports be made resilient? In order to address the risk resilience and disaster recovery in small or rural airports and private airports, the airport authorities need to implement the strategies that are likely to make airports more resilient such as follows: Educate travelers, staff, and the surrounding residents on what should be done during a disaster Communicate effectively to staff and travelers about any extreme event Set up measures of business continuity and back up plans that support operations of the airports Build up an airport infrastructure design that accounts for potential climate change consequences Have business models that fund the incentivize long term preparedness, planning and prevention of disaster (Scalingi, 2007) Small and private airports have been made ready for disasters in many states. Several programs such as Get Airports Ready for Disaster (GARD) was established DHL, the global logistics company in conjunction with UNDP in 2003 under international aviation law to ensure small and rural airports are risk resilient. Such programs are developed to address the challenges that local airport officials face during disaster recovery. The programs help in developing contingency plans in order to accommodate disaster relief operations and coordinate any incoming emergency supply. Local airport officials are trained on disaster recovery measures and emergency response after disaster strikes. The major focus is therefore to build the capacity of rural airports to establish contingency relief plans. Such training programs are based particularly on on-site assessment in order to provide base line knowledge on the capability of airports to handle relief operations of disasters. DHL and the UNDP provide GARD standards to local airports and operation templates and procedures to roll out the training further across the rural and small airports. The major aim of trainings in risk resilience and disaster recovery is to ensure local airports own their plans for disaster management once skills have been conveyed to local airport officials. The capability of a local airport to coordinate an effective disaster recovery and response is facilitated if there are contingency disaster plans put in place (Stapelberg, 2009). The private airport sector as well as the rural airport requires effective measures to become more resilient and recover from a disaster. An entire society approach is needed in order to facilitate and enhance the disaster resilience of local and private airports. Because disasters wholesomely affect communities around airport facilities and besides possible loss of lives; livelihoods are lost in the long term. Having members of the community incorporated in these resilience plans reduces the period of recovery because should a disaster strike, everyone knows exactly what to do to get both their economic and social lives back. This kind of approach should be based on collaborative partnerships and involvement across all government levels, the civil society organizations and communities, the non-government sector, and businesses including small medium enterprises (SMEs). As such, the development and establishment of involvement and partnerships should be encouraged with the public and private sector in all phases of airport disaster management. Strategic mechanisms, frameworks, and approaches for working with the locals and private sector should be established, developed and strengthened in order to achieve disaster resilience. The primary aim is to facilitate and enhance the capability of both the local airports and the private airports to effectively respond to and recover from risks and disasters. Very crucial to building of disaster resilience include regular information sharing, practical exercises, and emergency planning (Stewart, Kolluru and Smith, 2009). Managing risks and disasters in small rural and private airports may not be an easy task, and therefore partnering with the stakeholders and involving the community may be pivotal in building disaster resilience and responses to emergency. The community involvement and local and private partnerships need to be based on clearly assigned roles in addition to shared responsibilities and tasks that have the private airports engaged, not just as a source of funding to local help local communities with the resources to the disaster management programs, but for use of expertise and core competencies in building community resilience and managing disaster and emergencies in the airports. There should be an enhancement of sharing best practices and platforms for regular dialogue as well as the lessons learned in order to raise further awareness of the potential of community involvement and local private airport partnership, and aid in establishing safe and responsible practices. The already existing programs need to be leveraged, identified, and built upon in order to ensure cost-effectiveness and avoid duplication in the management of disaster recovery and emergency response in rural and private airports. Therefore, the partnership between local airports and private airports that aims at building disaster resilience need to be seen as a long learning journey in which mistakes are inevitable, rectified and learned from. Hence, to ensure effective disaster resilience in both local airports and private airports, the officials of such airports need to be open to innovative and new ways of working as a team, together, in order to allow for flexibility in managing disasters and emergencies as they are anticipated or occur, and thereafter respond to their respective impact on airport business (Telstra, n.d.). Small and rural airports are encouraged to maximise the opportunities arising from partnerships that are established before a disaster strikes and aim to strengthen and build longer term collaborative engagement with such partners in responding to emergencies as well as building disaster resilience. Risk resilience and disaster recovery requires collaboration that allows the local and private airports to better understand, establish and develop capacities for disaster risk preventions and reduction. The two collaborators need to develop a process for assessing the collaboration effectiveness and both parties agree on the mechanisms of addressing risk resilience and disaster recovery in case of any extreme event. This assessment is important in determining if such partnerships are meeting their intended objectives. Other small and medium enterprises, nongovernmental organizations and companies should be integrated and encouraged since they play a significant role in building livelihoods of the locals by funding both in kind and through financial help in the aftermath of disasters. Their contribution to resilience by local communities is therefore immense and should be supported by government funds and contributions from private entities. Small, rural and private airports exist and are located within residential areas. Many people live around such airports and therefore in addressing disaster management, they should be part and parcel of the discussion as they are likely to be affected by any disaster in case of extreme event occurrence. Therefore, there is need for community education and to build local capacity as a key element in disaster resilient building. The stakeholders of the local airports as well as the private airports should play an active role in such attempts and efforts. The role of volunteers and nongovernment organizations as well as the degree to which community and business contribute to building disaster response and resilience, must be recognized and integrated. Such organizations training and educating communities on disaster resilience should be staffed and fully funded, and not rely basically on the personality or good will based leadership. This is because long term success is only established via adequate and consistent funding, dedication of the required resources and staff. This will ensure the community is well aware of the likelihood of disasters and risks, and therefore prepare adequately for any extreme event in their locality (Handmer and Choong, 2006). The local airports and private airports usually have different mechanisms and characteristics of handling disasters or building risk resilience by nature of the diversity not only in their physical environments, but also in their clientele. The two however should be flexible in their approaches in order to better incorporate the regional risks, opportunities, political situations, and any other unique factors that may be associated with disasters. This enables the local airports and private airports to put focus on the funding and resources where either can have the most effect. Government also needs to play a role in risk resilience and disaster recovery of small and rural airports and private airports. The government needs to explore mechanisms of creating incentives in order to leverage the local and private partnerships and community collaborations and involvement in disaster resilience with the private sector engaging in such collaboration as their part in the corporate social responsibility program. The government should work with the private sector in order to ensure the disaster resilience and continuity of essential services and supply chains in the context of potential risks and disasters (Dimattia, 2001). Conclusion In summary, risk resilience and disaster recovery is an important aspect of the air transport industry. Small and rural airports and private airports need to ensure they are more risk resilient and better prepared for any disaster and emergency occurrence. When one observes the measures that are taken in the airports to protect the hard infrastructure, there is often a win-win situation. The solutions not only address the possible disasters and climatic change, but also provide for additional benefits of sustainability ensuring the facilities are not only safe, but also last through generations. With the inclusion of local communities, recovery from a disaster is bound to last much shorter because of the ownership of such plans by those likely to be affected. References Dimattia, S. (2001). ‘Planning for continuity, Special libraries close to the events of September 11 can serve as a model for the impaotanace of beong prepared’, Library Journal, 126(19) 15 Nov 2001, 32-34. Dupree, J. (2013, February 22). FAA may close air traffic towers at smaller airports | Jamie Duprees Washington Insider | www.ajc.com. Atlanta News, Sports, Atlanta Weather, Business News | www.ajc.com. 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