Operational and Business Continuity Planning for Prolonged Airport Disruptions (2013) / Chapter Skim
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P a r t 1 Business Continuity Planning at Airports
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3 The likelihood that incidents will occur threatening to disrupt the continuity of business and operations at airports creates significant risk and obliges airports to develop recovery strategies and plans. Whether these disruptive incidents are specific to an airport or the result of broader circumstances, it is the airport's and fixed base operator's (FBO's)
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4assets; mitigating the impact of incidents that actually occur; responding to these incidents; and physically recovering from them. Emergency management is incident-specific and deals with all types of risks, hazards, and emergencies, both natural and man-made.
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5 • Assessment and advisory teams • Shared emergency operations center (EOC) facilities to coordinate relief efforts DOGs, such as Southeast Airports Disaster Operations Group (SEADOG)
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6airports are considered government organizations, government COOP directives may require BCP at airports in their jurisdictions. Indirectly, compliance with specific FAA certification requirements (such as maintaining ARFF index levels)
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7 Challenges of Business Continuity Planning in the Complex Airport Operating Environment Airports are host to a unique mix of critical and supporting activities, roles, and responsibilities spread across multiple entities at fixed locations. Key functions are managed by airport staff, commercial contractors, tenants, FBOs and SASOs, or by airport operator personnel (e.g., city or county employees)
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8Ownership The ownership dynamics of U.S. airports contribute to the business continuity challenge because, for publicly owned airports, responsibility for numerous business functions may lie with departments at City Hall, the county office building, or the airport operator such as a port authority or even the state.
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9 ture (USDA) screens and isolates potentially harmful organic and agricultural substances to protect the U.S.
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10 Preliminary Steps in Business Continuity Planning Creating a Risk Profile Scenario Planning Scenario planning is the process of identifying the range of specific threats that an airport faces based on its mission, ownership, geographic location, operating environment, and many other factors that define the airport's risk profile and the types of disruptive incidents that the airport might encounter. Walking through the most pressing and likely crisis scenarios as part of a disciplined organizational process can help airport management better understand how disruptive incidents might be triggered or develop and how their impact might negatively affect essential operating and business functions.
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11 network or "supply chain," departmental depth, and strategic business objective. Number of Locations If the business continuity plan is being driven by an airport operator responsible for more than one airport, it should include an individual plan for each airport.
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12 BCP at airports should comprehensively identify critical stakeholders, appropriately communicate with them about the process, and include them when relevant. Airports should consider whether stakeholder groups should be part of the process or simply be included in the communications plan to keep them apprised of BCP at the airport.
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13 BCP includes a core set and general order of activities and processes, each of which is a building block of the finished plan. After taking the preliminary steps described above, airports and FBOs will have prepared the organizational and funding framework necessary to begin the process of developing their actual plans.
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14 • Maintaining financial controls • Maintaining compliance/regulatory status • Improving risk management • Maintaining employee commitments • Meeting contractual covenants Defining Planning Assumptions In order to document the recovery requirements and detailed tasks and responsibilities provided in the airport's business continuity plan, key planning assumptions should be identified and documented. Identifying planning assumptions will ensure a consistent basis for identifying the requirements for all functions to recover efficiently from a disruption at the airport.
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15 obscure, "minor" functions, processes, or operations can be to their viability. Many other, more obvious, airport functions can be predicated on seemingly inconsequential processes.
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16 These questions help define the tangible "physical plant" components that are required by every function to operate satisfactorily. Many airport operating functions are equipment- centric (e.g., the maintenance and repair department)
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17 tions; supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems; and hardware, network, database, or communications infrastructure.
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18 Critical Path Framework for Determining Recovery Priority Recovery priority depends on determining those operating and business functions that are essential to the airport's mission. The greater the negative impact is on the airport when a particular operating or business function is disrupted, the greater priority the recovery of that operating or business function should have.
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19 • The widespread absence of key operations staff due to pandemic, strike, or regional catastrophe • Loss of winter operations equipment during a major snowstorm Loss of these functions may result in a statutory or rulebased airport shutdown or an incident-specific shutdown. Loss or significant degradation of capacity of any function that can result in airport closure should be assigned a very short RTO, one measured in minutes or hours.
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20 operations and prioritizes those functions the airport absolutely requires in order to continue its day-to-day activities. For every function at the airport, the BIA catalogs how things are done at the airport.
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21 execute recovery within the RTO. Airports should close those gaps that they determine to be critical by investing in a mix of essential resources that will enable the organization to predictably recover its essential functions within their RTOs.
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22 major disruptions accounting can get by with running the ledger process every fortnight, if the impact of the reduction in frequency can be tolerated. If mowers are broken, the maintenance department can cut the grass every 2 weeks instead of every week for an extended period of time.
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23 answers to questions about how essential people, processes, plant and equipment, and technology can also be relocated there or effectively used elsewhere. Disruptions can present airports with the loss of physical assets and infrastructure ranging from the fundamentally critical (e.g., loss of a runway due to flooding or power failure)
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24 Some jobs may require specific demographic attributes: operators of some vehicles or equipment might have to be of a minimum height; firefighters may have to be capable of carrying a personal equipment load of a certain weight up ladders or meet other endurance tests; some security roles may require staff who are fluent in another language or of a particular gender. Essential workers may have to be members of a particular union.
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25 plan for reference and to invite third-party firms to participate in business continuity exercises and testing. Documenting the Business Continuity Plan The documentation of the business continuity strategy for all an airport's business and operating functions should be integrated into a plan that includes the following types of information.
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26 • Types of any function-specific physical facilities required at alternate locations, the sources of these facilities, and their specifications • List of any special infrastructure support services required by the function, their sources, and specifications • Any special security measures required by the functions, their sources, and specifications • List of any function-critical materials and supply items, minimum quantities required to be on hand, minimum reorder quantities, their sources, and specifications • List of any function-specific equipment or tools, order quantities, minimum quantities, sources, and specifications • Number of computers used in the function, their types, quantities, sources, and specifications • List of function-essential software applications, where they are stored or hosted, the criticality of recovery for each, the suppliers, and their contact information • List of function-essential communications devices, quantities required, sources, and specifications • List of essential office equipment, quantities required, sources, and specifications • Description of any other function-critical devices, quantities required, sources, and specifications • List of all organizations, agencies, or entities that need to be contacted during prolonged operational disruptions, the criticality and timeliness required for contacting them during disruptions, and their contact information Recovery Time Objectives The RTO for each of the airport's business and operating functions should be listed in a table. The RTO is the amount of time each function's operations can be suspended before the resulting negative impact becomes unacceptable.
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27 severe impact to one of the airport's recovery objectives (such as meet contractual commitments, maintain regulatory compliance status, preserve reputation, maintain financial and operational controls, and maintain employee commitment and morale)
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28 • Determine whether the required resources for recovery are available at recovery locations • Determine whether the business continuity plan has been properly maintained to reflect changes in the airport's business, operations, and technology • Manage the expectations of the business units at the airport regarding what they can expect in the event of an actual disruptive incident • Instill a sense of calm and confidence across the airport by showing that there is a demonstrable state of readiness for a potential disruption of services • Demonstrate compliance with applicable regulatory requirements and good airport industry practices Exercises are classified based on the extent of the actual resources being employed and the manner in which they are tested. Airports should consider using three types of exercises: a structured walk-through, component testing, and an integrated simulation/full operations test.
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29 Test Schedules The senior business continuity officer should coordinate the administration of the review, maintenance, and testing schedules. This person should also be responsible for following up on any revisions to the plan that may be required as a result of tests.
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30 – The facilities that the plan covers – The number and identity of the business and operating functions addressed by the plan • Objectives -- describes the goals set by the airport for the business continuity plan and distinguishes it from other plans (e.g., the emergency management plan, crisis communications plan, IROPS plans, etc.) • Assumptions -- describes the following: – The extent of the plan activation (i.e., how long it will take to recover disrupted functions when following the plan)
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31 – Functional recovery teams -- team leaders, members, and those with financial, crisis management, or public safety or security roles during recovery activities • Individual plans for functional recovery -- an explanation that the master airport plan is a "roll-up" of the recovery plans and requirements of the essential business and operating functions at the airport is given in this section • Functional recovery prioritization -- a listing of the many essential departments and functions operating at the airport or supporting it with a general recovery prioritization • Plan activation -- a section defining those incidents or disruptions that will result in official activation of the business continuity plan • Plan de-activation -- conversely, a section defining events that will de-activate the plan and return staff and departments to normal roles and responsibilities Functional Recovery Plans This section is the "meat" of the business continuity plan. It documents the recovery plans and the resources that are essential to the recovery of every essential function at the airport.
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32 allocating space and moving people, equipment, supplies, materials, records, files, and furnishings to their normal locations -- in coordination with local government, mutual aid agencies, DOGs, and even state or federal emergency support agencies. Employee claims (workers' compensation, overtime, etc.)
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