Obtaining the certificate is an important milestone for any airport, as it ensures that the airport operation meets safety standards.
Although the airport certification is not a novelty, and that since the beginning of the first certifications about a decade has passed, today there are still many airports around the world in the process of certification or in the process of being certified. In the following lines, the usual process for obtaining an airport certificate in any State is described in broad outline.
It should be noted that the legislation applicable in different countries may differ, but in general it is usually a transposition or an adaptation of the ICAO Annex 14. If we focus on the case of Spain, the applicable legislation is Regulation (EU) 2018/1139 of the European Parliament and of the Council and Regulation (EU) 139/2014 of the Commission, which indicates that aerodromes open to public use must be certifiedwhich provide services to the commercial air transport and who have an instrumental paved track 800 metres or more, or are used exclusively for helicopters using instrument approach or departure procedures. The State Aviation Safety Agency (AESA) is responsible for auditing the process and issuing the certificate.
Other actors to take into account are airport managers. This stakeholder can vary greatly, from a public or private historical operator managing a network of airports, to a private entity managing just one airport, or even a company from another sector that has acquired an airport. Therefore, knowledge of the process and the means available to carry it out can vary significantly. This can be a problem when certifying an airport in the case of small investors, who may be unaware of the scope of the process or the documentation required.
This issue is important, the most immediate conclusion being that a large manager will be able to carry out the process with its own resources, while a manager with fewer resources will need to outsource the process to a specialised company.
To begin the process, as a general rule, a series of documents or forms are usually completed which the certifying/auditing body provides to the interested party and which mark the start of the process; this will vary from one State to another.
The process could be divided into two branches of work, the first of which would correspond to the compliance with technical standards or Certification Specifications (CS), if it is to be certified in accordance with Regulation (EU) No 139/2014, while the second would correspond to the development of procedural documentationsuch as the Airport Manual, the OSMS, etc.
As a first step, as much information as possible is gathered, be it plans, aeronautical studies, procedures, etc. Normally this information will not be sufficient and additional documentation will need to be generated.
To do this, an initial assessment of the technical/CS standards is carried out, which will indicate which systems and infrastructures comply, which do not comply, and in which cases new documentation needs to be generated to assess compliance. Some examples of unavailable information may be: geotechnical studies to assess pavement resistance, topographical studies to assess the gradients of the movement area, platform lighting studies to check correct night-time illumination, etc. Logically, it is important to bear in mind at the beginning of the process what additional studies are necessary, as they will most likely incur an associated cost.
Once all the necessary documentation has been obtained (if possible), the complete evaluation of the technical standards, or CS, can be carried out, and detect all existing non-compliances at the airport to be certified.
The non-compliances detected will generate a series of risks that will be assessed in Aeronautical Safety Studies (EAS), for which expert sessions will be held where pilots, air traffic controllers, stakeholders, etc. will attend and give their opinion on the risks posed, resulting in a series of mitigation measures to be implemented that will reduce the risks as much as possible or even eliminate them. The measures can be very diverse and can be implemented immediately or in the long term.
In parallel, the Airport manualthe Operational Safety Management System (SGSO/SMS), the Emergency plan and the Security Plan. These documents can be an improvement or update to existing ones at the airport in question, or they can be created from scratch. Subsequently, training days will be required so that the airport workers can familiarise themselves with the new documents.
The Airport Manual is a compendium of documents describing the operation of the airport, a collection of plans with all the systems, protection areas and infrastructures involved on the airside and affecting operational safety, higher level procedures, specific procedures, the organisation chart and chain of command, the suitability of human resources for the tasks to be carried out, the training programme, etc.
On the other hand, the Operational Safety Management System It is a collection of specific procedures on how all operational safety matters are handled at the airport, such as risk management, supplier control, incident control, indicators, communications, audits, etc. The security plan, for its part, describes the systems and procedures necessary for physical security, coordination with State forces, etc. And the emergency or self-protection plan defines the necessary protocols in detail of the actions to be taken in the event of an emergency at the airport, whether due to a natural disaster, plane crash, attack, aircraft hijacking, etc.
When the process is nearing completion, the certifying body carries out one or several auditsThe fire service's response times are also checked, according to criteria and needs, to confirm that the infrastructure presented corresponds to reality and that the airport workers are familiar with the procedures in the manual. The response times of the fire-fighting service are also checked.
The last major document to be completed would be the Action and Mitigation Plan or Remedial Action PlanThis document describes the actions, detected during the performance of the EAS, to be taken by the airport manager in the short, medium and long term to achieve compliance or to make the facilities as safe as possible from an operational point of view.
Finally, the certifying body will approve all the documents described above and issue the airport certificate, which will be subject to compliance with the corrective action plan and periodic audits to verify that operational safety standards are maintained and that the action plan is being fulfilled.
Obtaining the certificate is a milestone of great importance, as it ensures that the airport's operation complies with operational safety standards in both its procedures and infrastructure, which represents an attraction and added value for airlines wishing to operate there.
