Safety Week

The campaign aims to start the safety conversation at airports by providing operators and stakeholders with a range of tools and resources to help engage with employees and contractors through the discussion of key airport safety messages.

This year Airport Safety Week saw record numbers of participants with 90 Australian airports, 13 New Zealand airports, five international airports and 21 corporate members signing up, a 63 per cent increase in the number of participating organisations from last year and reflective of the industry’s strong focus on safety.

This year we were also excited to welcome several international participants, which included airports in the Czech Republic, Jordan, Malaysia, the Maldives and Zimbabwe. In addition 24 airports across Canada conducted their own ‘Canadian Airport Safety Week’ in August, which had taken inspiration from the AAA and NZ Airports campaign.

Each participating organisation received resources that enabled them to host various toolbox talks/ safety meetings at their airport via the daily eNewsletters, as well as the dedicated Airport Safety Week website. The daily themes for the 2015 campaign were airside safety, fatigue, runway safety, drug and alcohol management, and noise.

These themes were selected to cover a vast array of airport safety fields, while also specifically focusing on key safety areas affecting the airport sector. The daily themes were also supported by tailored toolbox talks/safety meetings and industry activities, as well as the two nationwide industry activities: the FOD (Foreign Object Debris) Walk on Wednesday October 28 and the Wear Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to Work Day on Friday October 30.

All airport staff and contractors, even those that do not normally have the opportunity to go airside through their daily work commitments, were encouraged to walk a section of the airport to scan for FOD and raise awareness of airport safety. The FOD Walk forms an integral part of Airport Safety Week by bringing people from all facets of the airport community together to focus on the management of rubbish and other debris that cause a hazard to safe aircraft operations.

Airport Safety Week facilitates numerous activities to generate greater safety awareness on airport.

The second industry activity was the Wear PPE to Work Day, where all staff were encouraged to wear PPE to work on the final day of Airport Safety Week. This activity raises awareness of the appropriate use and maintenance of PPE in the aviation workplace at the same time as highlighting the important role PPE plays in keeping people at work safe.

Apart from these two main activities, it was great to see so many airports embrace the daily themes of Airport Safety Week and facilitate numerous additional activities to generate greater safety awareness on airport. These activities included workshops and training sessions based on the daily themes; road shows to local primary schools; community tours of the airport; terminal displays and exhibition stands; ARFF equipment displays; afternoon teas and barbeques for staff and tenants; as well as competitions and prizes focused on safety, to name just a few.

As part of Airport Safety Week, the AAA has also developed the Airport Safety Awards. These awards aim to recognise employees, teams and projects at airports across Australia and New Zealand that support a positive safety environment. This is a very important aspect of Airport Safety Week and serves to acknowledge the hard work and dedication of individuals and teams in delivering projects to improve safety at airports across Australasia. The Airport Safety Awards were open to all organisations that are current members of either the Australian Airports Association or the New Zealand Airports Association and were presented to recipients that best exemplified the airport safety values of providing healthy and safe airport environments for all users.

This year’s award winners included Adam Gough (Mackay Airport) – Major Airport Individual Award; Ian Slade (Tennant Creek Airport) – Regional Airport Individual Award; Wellington International Airport ‘Safety Wingman’ campaign – Major Airport Project Award; Airport Operations team at Illawarra Regional Airport – Regional Airport Project Award; Rhett Nothling and Darwin Airport team – Major Airport Team Award; and Brian Smith and Andrew Lillington from Parkes Airport – Regional Airport Team Award.

The AAA and NZ Airports also recognise that the success of Airport Safety Week would not be possible without our dedicated partners that support the campaign. A special thanks goes to our 2015 Airport Safety Week partners: Civil Aviation Safety Authority, Civil Aviation Authority of New Zealand, Airways, Airservices, ACI Asia-Pacific, Australian Transport Safety Bureau, and the Australasian Airports Safety Forum.

The AAA would like to sincerely thank all of the organisations that participated and supported the event this year to ensure that it was an outstanding success. We are already looking forward to creating an even stronger campaign next year and look forward to your participation.