AirportOperationsSpecialist

The work

Everything airside is somebody’s responsibility, and this is that somebody: runway inspections, wildlife control, contractor escorting, snow and ice plans, incident response, and the standing arrangement with the fire service. Almost none of it is visible to passengers, which is the mark of it going well.

A typical day

• 01Inspect runways and taxiways at the start of the day and after any event
• 02Control access to the movement area and escort who needs escorting
• 03Coordinate with the tower, the fire service and the handling agents
• 04Run the plan when weather, a spill or an aircraft problem closes something

How people get in

• Aviation degree

  Airport or aviation management programmes feed this role directly.

• From the ramp

  A very common route: handling or fire service experience, then into operations.

How it unfolds

1. Year 1Airside driving, radio, inspections. Learning an airfield in every weather it has.
2. Years 2-4Duty officer. You are the person the tower calls when something is on the runway.
3. Years 5+Operations manager: the plans, the audits, the exercises, the contractors.
4. LaterAirfield management or safety, at a bigger airport or a regulator.

Is there a job in it

The hard parts

Shift work, in the open, in whatever the weather is doing, and the busiest days are the worst ones. When something goes wrong you are the one coordinating it while several people want an answer at once. Most of the job is invisible when it works, which is also how it is judged.

What you would need

• Airfield regulations
• Radio discipline
• Incident command
• Composure when several people want an answer at once