Balancing Act
FBOs beef up security while trying to maintain service, convenience
By John Boyce, Contributing Editor
November/December 2001
Seeking Input AIRPORT BUSINESS wants to know how line operations around the U.S. and Canada are changing their procedures to enhance safety and security. Contact Editorial Director John Infanger at (920) 563-1655.Security has become a balancing act for fixed base operators and other aviation service companies across the country. They’re trying to take what they consider to be prudent security measures in the wake of the September 11 terror attacks, while maintaining high levels of service and convenience for customers.
"If you go back to one of the reasons
that general aviation exists," says Steve Lee, senior vice president
for marketing and business development at Signature Flight Support, "it’s
because customers want the absolute amount of flexibility, convenience,
and anonymity. Those things don’t always go too well with security....
"The challenge ahead of us is to figure
out how you maintain that flexibility for our customers but also create
a safer environment for them to be in. I don’t think we have the
answer; that’s going to be the challenge."
Most FBOs, it appears, have taken some steps
to increase security at their facilities; some because they were required
to by their presence on an airport governed by Part 107 and some because
they wanted to do the responsible thing to protect their businesses, their
customers, and their airports, whatever the airport requirements.
Signature, since September 11, went so far
as to have a security audit done by a third party security company on
one of its facilities. Explains Lee, "We’re going through those
recommendations, and doing things like moving equipment, increasing visibility,
increasing lighting. We’re exploring the idea of video cameras. In
some locations we have video cameras to some degree, but having complete
coverage for the complete campus is not common."
Daniel Maddox, director of safety and training
for Mercury Air Group, reports that he is treating all of the company’s
19 FBOs as Part 107 locations (see sidebar). He says the reaction of customers
has been mixed, though most are cooperative.
"We’re getting grumblings from
some of our customers because of the restrictions we’ve imposed on
ramp access. If I could speak frankly, there’s a group of customers
who do complain. (But) there’s a group that is welcoming our security
measures for their protection. It’s a day to day thing."
COUNTERING DISSATISFACTION
Mercury’s New Checklist
One of the leading U.S. chains of
fixed base operators shares its upgraded safety and security plan.
Immediately following the September
11 terror attack on the U.S., Daniel Maddox, director of safety and
training for Mercury Air Group, began implementing a detailed security
plan that is largely in place but is still a work in progress.
According to Maddox, the specific measures
being implemented include ...
• No vehicles will be allowed on
the ramp or AOA except emergency or support vehicles for aircraft.
• Mercury employees or airport
security must escort all vehicles. All gates are locked and chained
which do not have access codes. "And now even those are locked
and chained... Everyone is to be recognized, challenged, and escorted."
• Non-Mercury employees will not
be allowed in any of the operational areas of the buildings. Restrooms
and storage areas are to be checked every half hour on a staggered
basis for unauthorized personnel or foreign or unusual objects.
• All aircraft storage hangars
are to be inspected by walk through every hour on a staggered basis
for unauthorized personnel or foreign or unusual objects.
• Fuel trucks will not be parked
or left unattended within 100 feet of public access.
• On gates that have access codes,
the codes will be changed a minimum of monthly and reported to local
aviation authorities.
• All parking areas are monitored
closely for suspicious vehicles. "We’ve towed a lot of vehicles
lately throughout our chain."
• The immediate drop-off area is
just for drop off — no parking.
• Aircraft information (tail numbers,
owners, destinations) will not be divulged to anyone. No passenger
luggage left unattended in any areas.
• All lighting on the AOA ramp
is to be made operational; no unlit bulbs.
• Keys are assigned and all unassigned
keys are secured in a lock and key control cabinet.
• All access points to hangars
and buildings are monitored at all times.
• All doors not in use for daily
operation must be secured. All Part 107 airports check with local
authorities to ensure that the operation is in compliance. All trash
receptacles have been removed from the drive up side of terminal buildings.
• Posted emergency contact lists
so that if something does occur, there’s a chain [of response].
Explains Maddox, "We’ve also
requested at all our locations that they put together and implement
emergency call-out rosters; in the event something happens, we can
call people into work. Also, we’ve posted numbers for local police,
ambulance, fire department, FBI, state bureau of investigation, ATF,
and local airport security." All numbers are available to all
employees.
Many FBOs have tried to blunt any dissatisfaction
by their customers by following the Mission Statement of the National
Air Transportation Association, in which the association suggests displaying
signs explaining what the restrictions are and why they are in place.
"We are in the process of having signs
made right now as suggested by NATA," says Gary Driggers, vice chairman
of Midcoast Aviation in St. Louis and Little Rock. "They will be
on easels while we find permanent locations for them. We want to establish
right up front that we take security seriously, and we’re doing everything
in our power to make sure our customers are kept safe."
Driggers has also attempted to lighten the
burden on customers, particularly maintenance customers, by creating internal
badges for them. After the customer has been positively identified and
checked out, he or she will be given an internal photo badge "so
they don’t have to sign in every time they come into the facility."
Access to the ramp is at the heart of FBO
security and is also at the heart of the inconvenience to customers. Each
of the FBOs interviewed for this article reports a tightening of requirements
for getting onto the ramp. Many have completely eliminated vehicular access
to the ramp except airport-related vehicles that have been identified
and tagged.
"We’ve limited access to the ramp
as far as vehicles go," says Tom Ransom, vice president of Qualitron
Aero Services at Bush Intercontinen-tal Airport in Houston.
"The unknowns that used to go to the
aircraft don’t go anymore. Trucks that used to get ramp-side don’t
get ramp-side anymore. They deliver street-side. Uniform companies and
such don’t get ramp-side anymore. It’s just tightened up more."
Joe Fawcett, director of marketing at Central
Flying Service in Little Rock, AR, reports similar measures at Central,
which is one of the oldest FBOs in the country in terms of longevity.
"As far as line operations, I don’t know that the impact is
that great so far," Fawcett says of heightened security awareness.
"It basically requires us to exercise a higher level of due diligence
in monitoring the people and the vehicles on our ramp than we may have
had to exercise in the past. Recently, we’ve had the directive that
sort of narrows the field of consumers who are going to be allowed to
drive on the ramp....
"All but one drive-through gate has
been shut down. And effective last week [Sept. 30-Oct. 6], we have a man
at the gate checking IDs and stickers on vehicles."
Even at what Larry Jessen, president of
Great Southwest Aviation in Roswell, NM, calls a rural airport, the airport
has clamped down on access to the ramp. "The security hasn’t
impacted our operation that much. The city has locked up the gates where
our customers used to be able to bring their cars up to their aircraft
to onload and offload the aircraft. Now, they [customers] are having to
bring their belongings through the FBO itself. That’s pretty much
the only impact we’ve had."
RESTRICTED RAMP ACCESS
Sowell Aviation in Panama City, FL, still
allows vehicles onto its ramp, but it’s not nearly as easy as it
once was. "Vehicles can go onto our ramp," says vice president
of operations Ron Hensel, "so long as they meet 107 requirements.
They have to be escorted by a badged employee. Before the September 11
ordeal there were several ways vehicles could be escorted. By prior arrangement
you could give them a ticket and and they could just repeat through the
intercom the receipt number and their N number... But that’s gone.
Now they have to provide a positive ID, and if there’s any doubt
we send them around to the front counter." Then a badged employee
escorts the person and his or her vehicle to the aircraft.
Invariably, passengers coming through an
FBO terminal will not be allowed onto the ramp unless they have been identified
by a certified flight crew member. That flight crew member then personally
escorts the passenger to the aircraft. Some FBOs are making it policy
to have a badged employee escort the flight crew and passengers to the
aircraft.
Things have even tightened up for the "regular
GA guy, " Hensel says. "We ask for more of a positive ID before
he’s allowed on the AOA. It used to be, ’I got that 172 over
there.’ It’s not that way anymore. They have to give us positive
ID, the tail number, the color, etc."
John Gudebski at Sacramento (CA) Jet Center
has no Part 107 burden because Executive Airport is strictly a general
aviation airport. However, recognizing the potential threat has prompted
him to install video cameras in his interior hangars. In immediate response
to the attacks, he spread his fuel trucks over the airport rather than
co-locate them.
BACKGROUND CHECKS
Although FBOs are not currently required
to do criminal background checks on their employees who enter the SIDA
(except under certain circumstances), operators are unsure about what
the future may hold. "We always did a pretty complete, ten-year background
check," Lee at Signature says. "There’s been some mention
of a ten-year background check through the FBI, but that hasn’t been
mandated. But if it is, we’ll certainly do that."
Maddox at Mercury says his company, in addition
to the ten-year employment background check, is seriously looking into
doing criminal background checks on all their employees. "We’re
looking at the legality right now," he says.
If criminal checks are mandated, Hensel
at Sowell worries that the burden of paying for it will fall on the FBO.
"I understand that some legislators want the FBOs to bear that [burden].
I don’t think that’s a good idea from the standpoint that people
like us, well, all across the board, small, medium, and large [FBOs],
don’t have the resources available to do criminal checks. The government
has the resources for that."
One burden that has fallen on FBOs who have
to enter the SIDA is that airports have instituted much more stringent
checks of everybody before access is allowed. Jack Prior, chairman of
the board and founder of Prior Aviation in Buffalo, NY, reports "that
every time we have to get on the airline side of the field we have to
go through an identification check with all the wands. The mechanics have
to submit to a search of their tool boxes and they have their ID and AOA
cards checked. They might go six times a day and six times they are checked,
even if they’re recognized by the checkers."
The same is true of the Sowell fuel trucks.
"It’s a little more difficult getting into the terminal building
and servicing airplanes," Hensel says. "Once you’re on
the SIDA ramp, they search your fuel truck and then they run your personnel
through the metal detector or they pat them down. That’s a continual
process, so every time you come on the SIDA ramp for each departure, and
there are 27, you got to run through that process."
But there are few complaints from FBOs.
They say they realize the importance of security measures in these uncertain
times. "I would say the inconvenience posed to our operation is well
worth it," Hensel says.
Will security maintain its current strength
as time goes on? That’s a question that Fawcett at Central answers
by saying, "There is a fear factor about air travel and travel in
general. As long as those things loom over us in the media and in the
backs of our minds, I think everybody is going to be well aware and stay
pretty diligent in keeping up with security concerns."
