The reduction in airport traffic in 2020 caused many airports to reduce staff, shut down portions of their terminal buildings, and change operations to suit. Some airports shut down the main baggage handling system and combined all passengers through a common pre-board screening point. Airports were left with bare minimum staffing levels and equipment that hasn’t been in use for quite some time.

Air travel will regain popularity as a primary mode of transportation and airports will be challenged to provide an excellent customer experience once the restart begins. Has your airport reduced its staffing levels or powered down equipment because of the reduced traffic? As we wait for normality to return, operators should prepare and test unused equipment well in advance and continue to operate and exercise systems as they wait for passenger numbers to build.

The restart could require all the various stakeholders to hire new staff quickly, and some of these people will be new to the airport environment and unfamiliar with airport operations. The approach to a successful restart will be similar to ORAT but could be much riskier. A restart team consisting of experienced and well-equipped individuals would certainly be a very efficient way to train new recruits quickly, provide recurrent training, and assist in daily operations until the team is up and running and self-sufficient.

Once the restart is fully energized and working, operators can consider setting new goals for improved efficiencies through system audits, third-party reviews of processes and practices, and system hardware or software improvements. Not knowing when traffic will resume and how it will accelerate makes it difficult to plan. When the pandemic quarantine requirements begin to ease and borders open, the traffic surge could reach unexpected levels. Will you be ready?

When the new terminal building at Bermuda’s L.F. Wade International Airport opened on December 9, 2020, Bermudians and travelers were ready for the improved facilities. The nearly US$400m, 26,756m² facility provides an improved passenger experience with a streamlined check-in process, including a fully automated baggage handling system (BHS), the latest in pre-boarding screening equipment, and six passenger boarding bridges.

The airport’s baggage handling system includes a CT inline hold-baggage screening system, sophisticated sortation interfaced with messaging systems and the airport’s flight database, and an advanced baggage image and weight information system (BIWIS) to provide US Customs and Border Protection pre-clearance staff with information on passengers’ checked bags.

Of course, a brand-new, highly automated facility like this one requires testing and commissioning of the new BHS, passenger boarding bridges, and security systems. Aecon, a Canadian leader in infrastructure construction, contracted NextGen Systems Group for this essential phase of the project. Looking ahead to its operation of the airport, Skyport built a team to operate and maintain the new baggage systems and boarding bridges. The company relied on NextGen to assist in the development and execution of a hiring and training plan that ensured that a new team was ready for opening day.

NextGen provided training that was supplemental to the vendors’ equipment training and standard operating procedures. For the baggage systems in particular, the team identified all single points of failure and trialled contingencies so that the operators could become familiar with the required effort – important for a fast response and recovery time. In addition, the generic airport knowledge that some of us might take for granted was largely unknown to the new team. Some general airport training was important to ensure that the personnel understood the health and safety risks of their work environment. Training explored bag-room safety in addition to care and control of bags from a security perspective.

Airports bring people and places together. To do this, the facilities and the operators all need to be in sync.