Airport-to-Airport Mutual Aid Programs (2012)

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31 Relationships are extremely important because they are what drive the meaning of “mutual” in the term “mutual aid.” This chapter will operationalize the expectations of Chapter 4 and describe them by discussing the nature and dynamics of the relationships that need to be considered when designing or sustaining an airport-to-airport mutual aid program. Awareness among Airports Starting in 2004, numerous articles, presentations, and panels have been presented by AAAE and its regional divisions, ACI-NA, ALEAN, and the two ARFF groups, to discuss various aspects of airport-to-airport mutual aid programs. SEADOG and WESTDOG have been extensively publicized, but the other forms of airport-to-airport mutual aid have been publicized only locally or not at all. The WESTDOG and SEADOG websites—established in 2010—now give both groups visibility on the Internet; however, many airports may be unaware of existing programs, the ways to establish a new program, the benefits of an airport-to-airport mutual aid program, or even the hazards that might create a need to request mutual aid. Thus, there is a relationship between the knowledge of mutual aid possibilities and the development or enhancement of airport-to-airport mutual aid programs. Fortunately, the most powerful source of awareness is word-of-mouth and personal networks. This Guidebook is intended to facilitate all of these sources of awareness. Importance of Senior Leadership at Airports Airport-to-airport mutual aid cannot succeed without strong leadership and support from the senior managers at airports. Although directors of operations, directors of maintenance, ARFF chiefs, and airport police chiefs are the most likely individuals to see the practical benefits of mutual aid, support from the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and general manager is essential. This support is particularly important to resolving legal, contracting, and financial issues. Senior leadership is important for airport-to-airport mutual aid within an airport and between airports, and it is as essential to sustaining a program between activations as it is during an activation. Trust and Reliability Airport users must have trust in the operational reliability and safety of the airport. The concepts of COB and COOP were addressed Chapter 1. An airport-to-airport mutual aid program can help an airport protect its reputation and, therefore, the full range of that airport’s relationships. C h a p t e r 5 Relationships among Airports

32 airport-to-airport Mutual aid programs Existing airport-to-airport mutual aid programs are designed to deal with relatively short-term disruption of operations at an airport. The types of mutual aid organizations described in this Guidebook would not be suitable for dealing with long-term disruption at an airport. However, ACRP Project 03-18 (Operational and Business Continuity Planning for Prolonged Airport Disruptions) is addressing this issue. Recognition by Key Agencies Although official recognition by governmental agencies and other agencies is not necessary and such recognition may have differing or uncertain meanings, gaining such recognition is a worthwhile goal for implementers of an airport-to-airport mutual aid program. The most important aspect of recognition is an awareness of the existence and capabilities of the airport- to-airport mutual aid program. Almost as important is laying the foundation for cooperation, especially among agencies that will be at an affected airport (e.g., FAA, TSA, CBP, and possibly CDC) or arrive early in the response (e.g., local and state emergency management agencies, law enforcement agencies, FEMA, or the National Guard). In connection with this, the single most important relationship is the one that an airport should have with its local emergency management agency and, through it, with the state emergency management agency. The primary benefit of recognition is assistance with getting the EMAC/FEMA mission numbers that are essential for interstate liability coverage and reimbursement; in fact, there is no other path for obtaining mission numbers. Other benefits include simplification of access for incoming aid teams; protection of incoming personnel, equipment, and supplies; and knowledge of capabilities for integration into NIMS/ICS structures. Relationships with all of these agencies need to be built by airports as soon as possible—before a disaster creates an urgent need. Matching Types of Need and Aid The fundamental transaction in any airport-to-airport mutual aid program is the match between needs and assistance. This relationship among receiving, sending, and coordinating airports is central and will be the focus of Chapters 7, 8, and 9 of this Guidebook. The categories of aid that might be considered for a particular airport-to-airport mutual aid program are listed in Table 2 and Table 3 in Chapter 2 and Chapter 4, respectively. Organization The organization of an airport-to-airport mutual aid program is the structure of its internal relationships. In order to optimize the effectiveness of those relationships and to minimize the cost of program activations, the organizational structure should be aligned with the goals and mission of the airport-to-airport mutual aid program. Organization Options The existing airport-to-airport mutual aid programs illustrate the following basic organizational options: • Highly structured with membership qualifications. CARST is organized in this manner. • Highly structured with membership. WESTDOG is organized in this manner. • Loosely structured with a network of participants. SEADOG is organized in this manner.

relationships among airports 33 • Tied to an organization for another primary purpose. The New England ARFF equipment interchange is organized in this way as are the emergency generator program of the Louisiana Division of Aviation and the surplus equipment exchange of CAOA. CARST is essentially a subgroup of CAOA and the Colorado Division of Aeronautics. • A one-to-one relationship structured by contracts, memorandums of understanding (MOUs), or memorandums of agreement (MOAs). MIA’s aid to other airports in the secu- rity arena is structured in this manner. This is also a way in which to manage reimbursement for airport-to-airport mutual aid when existing interstate or intrastate arrangements do not apply. • Part of a statewide mutual aid compact. Although no airport examples were found to use this organizational structure, electrical utilities and public works use mutual aid in this manner, as described in Chapter 3. • Ad hoc. This is the oldest organizational model. An example would be the cooperation among airports in a region for handling weather diversions. Membership Options Understanding that all participants who will be managing and sustaining an airport-to-airport mutual aid program will be volunteers, there are several membership options available: • Membership with dues. This is theoretically possible, but no program has yet used this method of funding. • Membership with special skills as qualifications. CARST requires its members to have airport management experience, to have specific training, and to have been through the recovery process from at least one aviation accident, but CARST’s members are individuals, not airports. The airport members of SEADOG and WESTDOG do not have to pass a skills or size test, but these organizations do carefully match the qualifications of volunteers on their aid teams with the needs at the receiving airport. • Membership requiring written commitment. WESTDOG requires airports to make a writ- ten commitment to the organization, and this commitment takes the form of a resolution from the governing board of each airport. This is not a commitment to send aid without regard to the operational requirements of the sending airport. • No membership requirement. SEADOG’s airports are primarily knit together through the personal ties of senior and middle managers and, historically, by the shared threat of hurricanes. This has been a sufficient reason to bring forth airports to coordinate SEADOG activities and to bring forth volunteers for aid teams from SEADOG airports and airports elsewhere in the country. Compatibility with NIMS/ICS Compatibility with NIMS/ICS was once an issue for personnel from many airports, but subsequent to the requirement in FAA AC 150/5200-31C for NIMS/ICS compliance at all commercial airports, this should be either a non-issue or a diminishing issue as more airports become NIMS-compliant in their own emergency and disaster management plans and programs. Two aspects of NIMS doctrine are especially pertinent to airport-to-airport mutual aid: • Recognition of the phases of disaster. Since one of the basic premises of NIMS is that the nature and scale of a disaster dictates the nature and scale of the response, it is important that any airport-to-airport mutual aid program includes a well-defined relationship between its mission and when the program’s activities will be plugged into the emergency management cycle of preparedness, mitigation, response, and recovery. For example, SEADOG and WESTDOG are structured for response missions, and CARST’s mission is to assist in the recovery phase;

34 airport-to-airport Mutual aid programs however, all airport-to-airport mutual aid programs should be recognized as contributing to both preparedness and mitigation. Having rapid access to skilled volunteers in a disaster is a major form of mitigation and improves the preparedness of any airport. • Recognition of the roles for incoming mutual aid program personnel. As noted in Chapter 4, incoming mutual aid personnel must recognize and accept their roles in terms of the receiving airport’s structure and the NIMS/ICS structure. This relationship will express itself through the acceptance that it is absolutely necessary for the receiving airport’s manager to maintain control through whatever escorting, pairing, or training is required at a receiving airport, and through being qualified for and fitting into appropriate roles in a NIMS/ICS structure for response or recovery. Command and Control When it comes to command-and-control relationships, the following fundamental principles should guide any airport-to-airport mutual aid program: • The receiving airport’s manager should maintain control; • Any delegation of authority to someone from another airport should be in writing, ideally in advance of the dispatch of the aid team; • Command and control during the incident should be based on NIMS/ICS; and • Each aid team should have a designated member of the team to be its supervisor. Communications There are many mutual aid communications issues that need to be planned for and resolved, and, ideally, instructions should be set forth in a mutual aid SOP/guide. Protocols for communication among the following entities should be addressed: • Among participating airports; • Within the airport-to-airport mutual aid program organization; • Between airports, programs, and other agencies; • Within aid teams; and • Between aid teams and receiving/sending airports. Complying with established communication protocols is critical to maintaining healthy relationships no matter what the mission of the airport-to-airport mutual aid program is. For the aid teams, it is important that they have the ability to communicate with the receiving airport even prior to arrival and are able to communicate for all functions during the aid mission as necessary. Any airport-to-airport mutual aid program should have predefined communications protocols, but should also maintain flexibility to adapt to conditions encountered during activation. Legal Counsel The numerous legal issues inherent in airport-to-airport mutual aid programs must be iden- tified and resolved during the process of developing each program or during any membership application process. Unresolved legal issues, such as liability and workers’ compensation, could delay the response time of a mutual aid member airport during an event; at worst, unresolved issues could prevent an airport from participating. Counsels for airports and their owners (e.g., cities, counties, states, and authorities) should be consulted at the beginning of an effort to form an airport-to-airport mutual aid program and should be alerted whenever major changes in a program are being considered. Specific legal issues for consideration are the following: • Local approval for participation; • Liability coverage;

relationships among airports 35 • Workers’ compensation; • Approval of expenditures in advance or agreement for non-reimbursement; • Contracts between the receiving and sending airport for reimbursement; and • Validity of delegation letters from the receiving airport to people from the sending airport, when used. Financial Officers For an airport-to-airport mutual aid program to work, the following financial arrangements must be made through collaboration with financial officers, preferably in advance of need: • Record-keeping systems for expenditures for future claims for reimbursement; • Cost basis of resources deployed through mutual aid; • Reimbursement procedures; and • Financial sufficiency of aid teams (e.g., cash supply and travel expenses). Inventories of Skills and Equipment Mutual aid—receiving and sending—will be most effective when airports have ready access to the specifications and inventories of their equipment (including consumables) and the qualifi- cations (including specific airport systems) of their people. The emergency management terms that pertain to these activities are the typing of equipment and classification of personnel, but, in general, airport personnel are not classified in nationally standardized terms. This will be discussed in detail in Chapters 7, 8, and 9 of this Guidebook. Security Access The relationship between an airport’s managers and its TSA Federal Security Director (FSD) is the primary factor that determines whether an aid team will be useful as soon as possible after arrival. This is primarily true at a receiving airport, but disaster access procedures should be worked out at all airports before there is any disaster. One approach is to write mutual aid security access procedures into the airport’s certification manual (e.g., AEP and ASP), but this is not a black and white issue. The approaches presented in Appendix J, based on the actual practices reported by airports in the interview phase of this project, show that there are many ways to do this. However, all of these ways depend on the relationship between the receiving airport’s managers and its FSD and the quality of the documentation that the sending airport is able to provide. Training, Drilling, and Exercising The advantage of most airport-to-airport mutual aid is that the normal training at an airport is the only training that is needed for mutual aid. This is true even of specialized mutual aid (e.g., ARFF or law enforcement assistance). The very specialized case of CARST is based on pre-existing experience, not on special training. Although specialized training is not required for airport-to-airport mutual aid programs, considerable benefits can be gained by including various aspects of mutual aid in drills and exercises. This is an excellent way in which to build disaster-oriented relationships and operational familiarity between pairs or groups of airports. Outreach Airports involved in an airport-to-airport mutual aid program or interested in forming one should use the widest possible variety of means of outreach to inform other airports and

36 airport-to-airport Mutual aid programs agencies of the effort. Continual outreach is essential to sustaining airport-to-airport mutual aid programs between activations. Past, Present, and Future Airport-to-airport mutual aid programs build relationships by bringing people from different airports into working contact. These relationships can promote the building of a wide-ranging corporate memory of how airports can cope with disasters. The main elements of this corporate memory will be the following: • Prompt and effective after-action reviews; • The development, dissemination, and acquired knowledge of lessons learned; • The testing, dissemination, and application of best management practices; and • The application of these tools to all aspects of airport-to-airport mutual aid.