Below is the uncorrected machine-read text of this chapter, intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text of each book. Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.
27 The specific objectives of this synthesis were: (1) to locate, document, and assemble information on the training of newly- hired airport maintenance employees; (2) to identify current challenges and practices used at airports, particularly at gen- eral aviation (GA) airports; (3) to document core training elements and resources for new maintenance personnel; and (4) to identify resources that may help increase the knowl- edge and understanding of the new maintenance hires on the airport campus and its operating environment. The study identified several major challenges and issues that airport managers face as they attempt to integrate newly hired maintenance personnel into their organizations, including the lack of instructional resources and skilled instructors, limited staffing and budgets, variable quality in the workforce, and time constraints on the trainer. Information for this report was obtained through a survey of 30 GA reports from across the United States. Ten air car- rier airports were also surveyed for the purpose of compari- son. The overall response rate was 80%. The organizational size of the GA airports in the survey ranged from three to 70 employees; the majority had fewer than 15 employees. For the period from January 2011 to August 2012, the 30 GA airports in the survey averaged less than one new maintenance hire. Those airports provided an average of 52.6 hours of training to the new hire, but a number of airports provided less than one day of orientation. It was found in the study that new maintenance hires access the airfield primarily for the following reasons: electrical repair, pavement maintenance, emergency response, mowing, and infrastructure repair. The new hires can either be airport employees or individuals from public works department, a fixed base operator, tenant organizations, the FAA, or outside tradesmen, contractors, or laborers. At the 18 smaller GA airport organizations with fewer than 15 employees, the responsibility for training and ensur- ing integration of new employees was generally assigned to the airport manager or employee supervisor. The ability of the managers or supervisors competently to provide such instruction was not assessed in this study, but it was identi- fied as a concern for helping integrate new employees into the airport environment. Airports certified under Part 139 are required to provide a minimum amount of training on certain topics. Given those regulatory requirements, the GA airports in the study provided, on average, 52.6 hours of training to new hires. That average includes the non-certified GA airports, most of which provided less than one day of orientation. The amount of time spent on training tenant and contractor employees was even less. However, the amount of time that airport managers desired to spend training new maintenance employees averaged 56 hours. A definitive outline of essential training topics would have to factor in airport size, operations, geographic and weather con- ditions, and local requirements. However there was full agree- ment on four specific topic areas: (1) ground vehicle operation, (2) foreign object debris inspection, (3) pavement maintenance and inspection, and (4) lighting, signs, and markings. Addi- tional topics were identified from the survey responses, and the report provides a laundry list of topics and their ranked impor- tance. It was also found through the survey that while many GA airports indicated they had a training program in place, the program was not well-defined or constructed. It is concluded from the survey data, interviews, and lit- erature review that GA airports lack current, comprehensive training materials, videos or computer presentations applica- ble to GA airports which are economically feasible for them to obtain. Further, survey findings and conclusions suggest that airport managers can benefit from learning instructional development skills as part of their career progression, and from receiving more support and resources from their larger organization leadership or governing bodies in preparing new employees to take their places in the airport environment. chapter eight cONcLUSIONS
