SYDNEY CHARLES, MANAGER OF AIRPORT OPERATIONS

IT’S ALL ABOUT DOING WHAT IS SUPPOSED TO BE DONE AND DOING IT PROPERLY

Another veteran of the PSIA Charles has been there since the opening of the airport 23 years ago with a four year break during that tenure.
As Director of Airport Operations he is primarily responsible for all airside and landside operations at the airport. Airside operations basically involves the movement of aircraft , vehicles associated with this movement and ensuring that the area is free of debris for the safe movement of aircraft. Landside operations deals with ground transportation on the public side of the airport.

Charles, in his regular course of duty needs to ensure that passengers and the general public arrive in a consistent and orderly manner when departing passengers have to be dropped off or arriving passengers have to be picked up. This is accomplished by constantly communicating with the various stakeholders like the Customs, Immigration, Taxis and Red Caps. In an effort to maintain order when coming to the airport, the use of the public car park is critical. And as Charles put it, you arrive, you drop off, and you go to the car park so that order could prevail.

PASSENGERS WAIT IN LINE AT THE NEWLY REFURBISHED ARRIVAL LOUNGE

The Operations Manager also has to coordinate the ground transportation, meaning the taxis to ensure they pick up passengers consistent with the rules and regulations of the Airports Authority.

As far as the land side aspect is concerned, the Authority is considering ways to make the traffic flow more smoothly thereby reducing the congestion. This is done by placing a number of No Parking signs around the compound, instituting a tow- away service together with additional police and airport security personnel.

A method has been introduced whereby vehicles arriving at the airport, come in on the main road, drop off departing passengers, make a right exit and go back to the car park or leave the airport if that is their desire.
The concept is that if there are also arriving passengers at the time with those vehicles departing the airport travelling in one direction and those arriving at the airport traveling in the opposite direction it could create some congestion. Under the previous arrangement vehicles that had dropped off departing passengers went all the way up to the arrival area before they exited unto the back road. This problem has been eliminated by their exiting unto the back road as soon as they have dropped off their passengers.
The smooth execution of this process takes coordination with the airport authorities, the taxi service and the police and security. However, the long term solution is to have all traffic flow in a counter clockwise manner to minimize congestion.

VIRGIN ATLANTIC AIRCRAFT BEING TENDED TO BY ASG GROUND HANDLERS

Another essential aspect of safety and security is the fire service which has to be able to respond within a certain time in the event of an incident and must therefore be constantly standing ready at the required airport category.
By airport category, Charles means that there must be adequate fire protection for the largest airplane using the facility. We are classified category 9 since the largest plane using Point Salines is a category 9, the Boeing 747 which is flown in by Virgin. In the event that a fire truck breaks down and cannot be replaced immediately, the airport category will have to be lowered and therefore pilot of planes of the 747 size may take the decision not to land since we will not be able to provide the necessary fire fighting response to that particular aircraft.

Runway and apron inspections are done twice a day to ensure there are no debris and other materials that can damage airplanes.
When passengers disembark from an airplane their safety has to be ensured as well by seeing that they are led in the proper direction by a member of the airline staff and they do not stray and get ingested into a jet engine or get injured an aircraft propeller.
Charles has to make sure that all these things are consistent as far as rules and regulations are concerned in addition to the land side responsibilities.

In his 23 years of service at the PSIA Charles has witnessed a lot of changes but he said changes as far as operations are concerned have been very limited because the physical infrastructure of PSIA was basically ahead of its time in terms of the size regarding the facilitating the volume of passenger movement.
He said as far as aircraft operations are concerned it was realized within a short space of time that the apron was too small and had to be expanded. That change came around in 2000 in increase the capacity from two widebodied aircraft to aircraft parking positions for four large jet airplanes and an additional two positions for smaller airplanes of the LIAT and Caribbean Star type. The apron will have to be expanded even further in the near future.

As a rule of thumb, the runway has to be resurfaced every 10 years and it has been resurfaced twice so far and will not be due for another resurfacing for a further 7- 8 years.

Charles is quite aware that once you operate an international airport there are certain standards that you have to maintain. There is a regulatory body called the International Civil Aviation Organization responsible for ensuring that international airports all over the world maintain consistent standards.

SITE DESIGNATED FOR THE NEW CAR PARK

Auditors visit airports periodically to ensure that the standards are being observed and if any are not then the airport management is given a certain time by which compliance can be ensured.
Charles said airports are dynamic so every so often the management has to look at areas that need development, expansion or improvement.
This is done by making regular reference to the airport master plan.
In addition, staff has to be constantly training and upgrading to make sure they do their jobs more efficiently to meet the demands of modern airport operation.