AIRPORT OPERATIONS AND
SUPPORT FACILITIES
12.1 ABOUT THIS CHAPTER
Buildings for a variety of
operational purposes are required at an airport. These include accommodation
for meteorological, air traffic control, communications, rescue and fire fighting
services, fuel depot and all the facilities for administration and maintenance,
staff, aircraft operators, general aviation facilities and police. Sometimes
there is an hotel.
12.2 ADMINISTRATION AND
12.2.1 Only functions which
are essential for day‑by-day operations should be accommodated in
passenger and cargo areas, as their space is limited, and their size becomes
unnecessarily and disadvantageously large if they are used to accommodate
functions and staff which can be located at more remote positions. A separate
area for administration and miscellaneous purposes should be provided; this can
frequently be on the perimeter of the airport or incorporated with the
maintenance areas. Such areas as these, which employ large numbers of staff,
should be located as close as possible to primary public transport facilities
and should have good access to the operational areas.
12.2.2 Facilities which can
be appropriately included in an administration area include: office and other
accommodation for airport management, aircraft operators, government control
authorities, etc; police station; telephone exchange; airport maintenance
depot; and flight catering kitchens.
12.2.3 Maintenance
facilities will be required for motor vehicle repair, electrical repair
(buildings, radio and visual navigation aids), painting (buildings and runway
markings etc.) and mechanical repair. The maintenance facility should include
storage for material, replacement parts and a fireproof area for flammable materials.
12.3 MEDICAL CENTRE
Facilities should be
provided to staff and passengers for treatment of medical emergencies (first
aid), for aircrew medical inspection and for emergencies and rescue. The scale
of facilities and their purpose should determine the location, which, however,
should be chosen whenever possible within walking distance of the passenger
area(s). Facilities should be strategically located for easy accessibility in
case of an aircraft accident and be capable of expansion to serve on short
notice as an enlarged aircraft accident first‑aid receiving station. The
usefulness and efficiency of any medical emergency and rescue organization on
an airport may be greatly enhanced if it is in continuous use dealing with day‑to‑day
medical activities during the normal routine working of the airport.
12.4 GROUND VEHICLE FUEL STATIONS
A fuel station for
land side ground vehicles can be a good source of revenue for an airport
authority and may be necessary where fuelling facilities are not closely available
on the main public routes from the airport. It should be sited where traffic
entering and leaving it would not cross or slow down the fast continuous flow
of other traffic on the main vehicle routes. A‑ separate station for
airport vehicles may also be justified.
12.5 GENERATING STATIONS
Generating stations may be
required for heating, electricity, etc. After considering requirements for
future expansion of other airport facilities, consideration should be given to sitting
such stations as close as possible to the areas they serve in order to avoid
long service lines which can impose considerable inflexibility on future
development. It may be necessary at some airports to provide standby power
generators, independent of the main airport power system, as a secondary power
supply. See also ECAR 139, Chapter 8, ECAR 10, Volume 1, Part 1, and EAC 139-
12.6 WATER SUPPLY AND SANITATION
The airport must be
supplied with adequate water, properly processed and chlorinated and a sewage
disposal system for handling and treating waste. A dump for refuse and garbage
must be provided within a convenient distance of the airport or facilities
provided for temporary storage on the airport if this refuse is to be carried away
by others. Such dumps must be carefully planned in order not to create a bird
hazard problem (see EAC 139-11).
12.7 FLIGHT CATERING KITCHENS
Aircraft operators often
require fairly large facilities for preparation and storage of food, drink and
other aircraft cabin stores. These facilities should not be located in the
passenger area but should have good access to the aircraft aprons using airside
service road. The best location depends upon the nature of the airport traffic;
for airports with a large proportion of originating and terminating flights,
sites in the aircraft maintenance area may be appropriate. Customs regulations
may require such facilities to be within customs controlled areas. Generally,
preparation facilities and main stores should be included in the maintenance or
administration areas with supplementary stores and facilities sited adjacent
to the aprons.
12.8
METEOROLOGICAL SERVICES Meteorological Office
12.8.1 Meteorological
offices should normally be located so as to facilitate briefings between flight
crewmembers and meteorological personnel. Offices should therefore be close to
the other airport briefing and reporting offices (ATS reporting office,
aeronautical information services unit, etc.), and proximity to or good
communications with the airport COM centre and with local air traffic services
units of the airport is also essential.
12.8.2 There should be
sufficient space for the communications equipment needed to receive meteorological
information and, where charts and forecasts are prepared by the office, there
should be room for the plotting and analysis of the necessary charts. If it is
intended to provide weather radar for forecasting and briefing purposes,
suitable space should be made available for the radar display in a convenient
location, and provision made for interconnecting cables to the antenna site.
12.8.3 The forecaster
preparing the airport and landing forecasts should have a good view of the
airport and the office should be in proximity to, or have good communications
with, the aeronautical meteorological station.
12.8.4 Where all forecasts
are received from outside sources, space requirements would be somewhat
reduced. Where briefing is carried out by television or other electronic means,
the television receivers should be easily accessible to aircrews, who should
also be able to contact the office to deliver post‑flight reports, etc.
(see ECAR 3, Chapter 5).
12.8.5 An unobstructed view
of the airport, particularly of the runway complex, and good communications
with the meteorological office, the communications centre and the local air
traffic services unit(s) are essential. Observations are usually made in the
areas of runway intersections and/or the thresholds of instrument runways so
as to be sufficiently representative (ECAR 3, Chapter 4). Because of the
difficulties involved in stationing observers close to the runway, the trend is
towards the use of sensors at the necessary positions with distant reading
instruments in the meteorological station. In the planning of new airports or
improvements to existing airports, consideration should be given to provision
of necessary electrical ducts to allow the satisfactory sitting of sensors aid
distant reading equipment such as thermometers and anemometers near the runway,
transmission meters near the threshold and ceilometers in the approach area or,
where it exists, near the ILS middle marker.
12.9 AIRCREW BRIEFING AND REPORTING
12.9.1 Before a flight can depart from
an airport the aircrew may be required to undertake certain pre‑departure
procedures. Aircraft operators may have their own aircrew briefing requirements
and any facilities which they require for briefing their crews should be
provided within their administration buildings. However, accommodation for
aircrew briefing and clearance procedures required by government and
international regulations should be grouped together at a location suitably
related to the aprons.
12.9.2 Depending on the
category of traffic and local regulations, aircrew may be subject to customs
inspection of themselves and/or their aircraft. They may also be required to
file flight plans or report to the air traffic control authority, and to obtain
meteorological and aeronautical information service briefings. On arrival at
international airports aircrew must report to government control authorities to
clear themselves, the aircraft and stores.
12.9.3 Facilities for all
these purposes should be located as close as possible to the main centre of
activity of the aprons. At large airports with several aprons it may be
essential for reasonable speed of pre‑departure procedures and aircrew
convenience to locate facilities in more than one area. The premises where crew
members have to report for operational purposes should be readily accessible
and next to one another, if possible in the same building, preferably located
at apron level and on the main air side service roads. At large airports where
the apron areas for general aviation traffic are located at a considerable
distance from the main terminal area, consideration may be given to
establishing a satellite facility for ATS reporting and AIS and MET briefing in
order to facilitate flight preparation and reporting by flight crews. Adequate
short‑term vehicle parking space for aircrew and aircraft stores vehicles
should be associated with these facilities. The objective should be to achieve
the quickest and most convenient pre‑departure and post‑arrival
formalities for aircrew.
12.10 AIRCRAFT MAINTENANCE AREA
12.10.1 Similarly,
as for the passenger and cargo areas, sitting of the aircraft maintenance areas
will be influenced by the type of traffic for which the airport is intended and
the aircraft operators' route structures which it serves. The number or
aircraft moving between the maintenance areas and the aprons will depend on
whether the airport is used by aircraft operators as a base for major
maintenance, or only for line maintenance or for some combination of each. In
the first case there would be a considerable number of aircraft movements
between the aprons and maintenance areas, but somewhat fewer in the second case
because maintenance is carried out during aircraft turn round.
12.10.2 Aircraft maintenance areas should be sited compatibly with taxiway systems to avoid aircraft having to cross runways. Due consideration should be given to noise problems.
12.11 RESCUE AND FIRE FIGHTING SERVICES
12.11.1 The airport fire station should be located so as to ensure that response times for aircraft accidents and incidents are two minutes, and do not exceed three minutes, to the end of each runway in optimum conditions of visibility and surface conditions. Other considerations, such as the need to deal with structural fires and other duties performed by rescue and fire fighting personnel, are of secondary importance and must be subordinated to the primary requirement. At a large airport it may be necessary to provide more than one fire station, each located strategically in relation to the runway pattern. Analyses of aircraft emergencies have revealed that a large proportion of aircraft accidents and incidents occur on, or close to, the runways and, thus, sites for fire stations that will give the shortest response time to these areas are essential.
12.11.2 The airport fire station will provide facilities for housing the rescue and fire fighting equipment and personnel, including in some cases ambulances and their crews. The equipment, amounts of extinguishing agents and number of vehicles and personnel will be determined primarily by the length of the aeroplanes using the airport and their frequency of operations. (See also ECAR 139, and the EAC 139-9.)
12.12 GENERAL AVIATION FACILITIES
12.12.1 General aviation is
defined as all civil flying not classified as commercial air carrier and
includes many different type and use categories of aircraft. General aviation
includes such diverse activities as personal flying, transportation of
personnel and cargo by privately owned aircraft, air taxi and agricultural
flying, and instructional flying.
12.12.2 The various types
of aircraft comprising the general aviation fleet range from single‑engine
aircraft to multi‑engine turbo‑jet. The growth of general aviation
activities in many States has greatly exceeded that of the commercial airlines
and has become an integral part of the national air transport system. The
requirements of locally based and itinerant general aviation activity, both
national and international, should be considered an integral element of airport
master planning.
12.12.3 One of the primary
considerations in the airport planning process is the anticipated level of the
volume of general aviation operations the airport will experience, both
initially and in the future. The accuracy of forecasts of the demand for
general aviation utilization of runways, taxiways, apron and terminal
facilities can become a major influence on the capacity of the entire airport
system.
12.12.4 General aviation
includes many different types of aircraft with a wide range of operational
requirements. An airport that experiences a mix of general aviation and
commercial aircraft may cause unacceptable delays in departures and arrivals,
particularly during periods of marginal weather conditions. An airport that is
to serve both scheduled commercial operations and a substantial volume of
general aviation should, when possible, provide a separate runway and taxiway
system to serve general aviation type aircraft exclusively. Such airport
facilities should be positioned so that general aviation aircraft are not
required to taxi, take off or land across airport facilities primarily provided
for commercial aircraft operations.
12.12.5 When general
aviation operations are substantial in volume they should be centred at a
location on the airport apart from the passenger facilities provided for
commercial airline services. The site selected for general aviation activities
should include sufficient area for hangars, aircraft parking, and storage,
fuelling and maintenance facilities. At some airports a relatively small
passenger terminal may be required to provide accommodations for passengers
and crews, if the airport is to be served by commuter or short‑haul air
services with general aviation‑type aircraft. Customs and international
clearance facilities for international passengers and for aircraft of foreign
registry may be required in the general aviation service area.
12.12.6 At airports where
either the scheduled operations or the general aviation operations are
very low, separate facilities are not always required and combining of
facilities may be prudent to support airport concessions.
"Utility
Airports",
ECAR 10 ‑
Aeronautical Telecommunications.
ECAR 139 ‑ Aerodromes.
Airport Services Manual (Doc
9137), Part 1 ‑ Rescue and Fire Fighting, and Part 3 ‑ Bird Control
and Reduction.
Aerodrome Design Manual (Doc
9157), Part 4 ‑ Visual Aids.