National Academies Press: OpenBook
« Previous: Chapter Seven - Rural Alaskan Airports
Page 53
Suggested Citation:"Chapter Eight - Conclusions ." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2015. Airside Snow Removal Practices for Small Airports with Limited Budgets. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/22105.
×
Page 53
Page 54
Suggested Citation:"Chapter Eight - Conclusions ." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2015. Airside Snow Removal Practices for Small Airports with Limited Budgets. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/22105.
×
Page 54

Below is the uncorrected machine-read text of this chapter, intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text of each book. Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.

53 The main conclusion from the study is that despite struggling with limited budgets, older equipment, and few employees, airport operators in the survey displayed a resiliency and independence in doing all they can to keep their airports operational during the winter season. The prime challenges within the different categories of airports studied are related to the orga- nizational structure of small airports, the lack of equipment and adequate personnel, the expense associated with snow removal operations, and the difficulty in forecasting the number or severity of future winter events. Some of the challenges the airports in the survey face lead to the following conclusions: • Limited budgets for personnel or overtime is a major issue cited by many survey respondents, as is the lack of available or skilled personnel. The surveyed airports generally had only one to four people to manage any winter event. The potential cost to airports is longer work hours and overtime, employee fatigue and possible mistakes/errors, and lost productivity in other areas of the airport. • Higher activity airports, such as the reliever and regional category airports, have better financial capabilities, but also higher snow removal equipment (SRE) needs. To address and support the higher capabilities, budget alignment is important. • Keeping older equipment operational is a problem for some airports because equipment or vehicle parts are hard to come by or maintenance personnel are not readily available. The air- ports struggled with maintaining equipment that averaged 15 years in age and ranged from one to 66 years old. Equipment breakdown from age-related issues can impact the budget in many ways: lost business, expense of removing/repairing the equipment, inability to remove future snow, lost employee productivity, and lower employee morale, to name a few. • A surprising number of airports have experienced equipment breakage on the airfield or cannot use equipment because of maintenance issues or parts availability. • Keeping the airport open for medical evacuation activity is a pressing problem for those airports with based activity. • Disruptions to the flow of snow removal activities, such as equipment breakage, pilot arrivals and departures, and tenant requests for non-critical plowing, are stress points for snow removal operators. Snow removal efficiency comes from having a plan and working the plan without disruptions. • Airports with limited budgets or low activity are less likely to have shelter available for their snow vehicles or equipment. This is more problematical for the basic category airports, where only 53% of those surveyed had snow removal equipment buildings (SREs); whereas reliever and non- primary commercial service airports are able to shelter 100% of their equipment. Increased fund- ing assistance from state or federal government for SREB can help prolong service life of SRE. • The number of airport operators reporting damage to equipment and airfield fixtures points to a possible training or skill development issue at the surveyed airports. Most training was on the job rather than formal. Improving budgets or making funds available for training or educational opportunities can improve the return on both capital investment and human performance. • The proper dissemination or cancellation of NOTAMs and the maintenance of SRE are other areas for valuable training. • To help address the challenges of limited budgets, the FAA and state aviation agencies assist airports with SRE acquisition through grant funding or other means. Restrictions placed on the equipment’s use was found to be a factor for why many airports have not pursued federal assistance. chapter eight CONCLUSIONS

54 • The use of Airport Improvement Program (AIP) funds is the most prevalent means for small air- ports to acquire SRE. However, fleet and surplus property purchases were more prevalent at basic category airports than for the other airport categories. Regional and reliever category airports had higher percentages of equipment purchases using internal funds. Surplus SRE acquisitions are prevalent because of restrictions on the number of AIP SRE an airport can have and the perceived lower cost of acquisition. Older equipment is more likely to lead to greater maintenance expen- ditures and more downtime than newer equipment. Small airports would benefit from being able to acquire additional AIP-funded SRE in less than the current 10-year limitation. • The surveyed airports were often relegated to acquiring used or hand-me-down equipment because low operational activity or competing airport capital priority requirements made the AIP or state grant process unavailable. • Several small airports expressed a desire for multi-purpose tractors or vehicle that can be used for purposes other than snow removal. • More than 30% of existing SRE at the local, regional, and reliever airports were identified by management as needing replacement. • About one-third of the airports do not have the ability to use sand or de-icing/anti-icing chemicals because of cost, lack of equipment, or storage limitations. Increased funding assistance from state or federal government for chemical storage can enhance safety through the use of de-icing/ anti-icing methods. • A snow and ice control plan (SICP) is one of the most efficient ways to meet the challenges of a winter event at small airports with limited budgets; however, 35% (16 of 46) of small airports surveyed do not have a SICP. An SICP is necessary for receiving FAA consideration for SRE under AIP. Improved planning results in more efficient operations when trying to do more with less. A well-defined SICP can help justify more SRE and staffing. • Small GA airports are often the last priority for snow removal under a community-wide snow plan because of low activity or perceived lack of importance. Airport managers would benefit from better communicating airport needs and stress positive economic or emergency attributes of the airport to local governmental officials. • Airport managers bring an important safety perspective to snow removal operations that other municipal workers or contractors engaged in snow removal may not have. A manager’s dedi- cation to safe operations and education needs support from policy makers, administrators and other managers. • Airports need more financial and community support. Increases in capital funding for acquisition and maintenance of SRE and facilities can improve safety, reduce liability exposure, and increase economic activity.

Next: Acronyms »
Airside Snow Removal Practices for Small Airports with Limited Budgets Get This Book
×
MyNAP members save 10% online.
Login or Register to save!
Download Free PDF

TRB’s Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Synthesis 67: Airside Snow Removal Practices for Small Airports with Limited Budgets covers challenges and successful strategies that airport operators use at small airports with significant budget and other constraints to coordinate and conduct snow removal operations.

  1. ×

    Welcome to OpenBook!

    You're looking at OpenBook, NAP.edu's online reading room since 1999. Based on feedback from you, our users, we've made some improvements that make it easier than ever to read thousands of publications on our website.

    Do you want to take a quick tour of the OpenBook's features?

    No Thanks Take a Tour »
  2. ×

    Show this book's table of contents, where you can jump to any chapter by name.

    « Back Next »
  3. ×

    ...or use these buttons to go back to the previous chapter or skip to the next one.

    « Back Next »
  4. ×

    Jump up to the previous page or down to the next one. Also, you can type in a page number and press Enter to go directly to that page in the book.

    « Back Next »
  5. ×

    To search the entire text of this book, type in your search term here and press Enter.

    « Back Next »
  6. ×

    Share a link to this book page on your preferred social network or via email.

    « Back Next »
  7. ×

    View our suggested citation for this chapter.

    « Back Next »
  8. ×

    Ready to take your reading offline? Click here to buy this book in print or download it as a free PDF, if available.

    « Back Next »
Stay Connected!