Airports can be run by local authorities, be privately owned or be part of a large pic. In some cases, it is the airport operator who is the employer (for management, administration, baggage handling, maintenance, cleaning, information, apron control, medical services and emergency services). Other employers may be private companies based at an airport and operating a franchise on behalf of the airport.
UK airports handled 180 million passengers in 2000, a rise of 7 per cent on 1999. Although events such as the foot and mouth outbreak, the Lockerbie plane crash and the World Trade Center terrorist attack can cause a dramatic decrease in passengers, people want to travel, so eventually figures climb again.
Recently there has been a boom in low cost airlines. To keep fares down, they have to cut out all frills which often means landing at 'secondary' or lesser known airports where charges are lower. These airports are often some distance from the city but if you live on that side of a city, you are only too happy to fly from near home! Business travellers who might have an appointment near the airport are happy to save money, and student travellers and others on low budgets often don't mind if they have to make a journey of two or three hours to get into a city, if it means saving several hundred pounds on an air fire. This means more work at regional airports.
Airport authorities
Running an airport is very complicated and stressful occupation. To run a major airport such as Charles de Gaulle in Paris, Schiphol at Amsterdam, O'Hare (world's largest) in Chicago, etc. requires a bigger budget than many small countries!
Here are some of the reasons for passengers choosing to fly to or from one airport rather than another:
- Being near a major destination for business or pleasure.
- Cheaper than a competing airport, but still within relatively easy reach of a prime destination.
- Runways long enough for larger planes to land.
- Having a large catchment area.
Airports encourage tour operators to use their airport to fly clients off on holiday. Again, price comes in to the equation, and also tour operators will want to see how many people live in the catchment area. They analyze their client base to see how many clients live near the 'new' airport, as opposed to the airport from which they currently fly, before deciding to add flights from this airport.
Look at an airport on a map, and you see a huge area. Within this is a multitude of jobs:
- BAA (British Airports Authority) employs 13,076 at its airports.
- London Heathrow Airport has 80,000 working there.
- 'Smaller' airports, such as Birmingham, Teesside, Belfast, etc. employ over 80,000 passenger sales agents, immigration officers, air traffic control staff, police, etc.
- Customs and Excise has around 24,000 employees.
- Support people, such as advertising and PR staff, freight agents, chaplains, animal health workers, etc. are also employed.
Airport work will almost certainly involve shifts, and you may need your own transport to cope with early or late starts. You have to be a good team member, particularly at peak times. , Airline delays can mean working late into the evening to clear a backlog. This plays havoc with social life, but does give a sense of job satisfaction.
You and your colleagues have to sort out the knock on effect of problems elsewhere: an unexpected influx of asylum seekers, a strike by air traffic controllers in another country, a hi jacked aircraft trying to land at your airport. These and thousands of other problems mean that no day is ever the same.
Airports are expanding, and 'old' airports upgrading, so more jobs are available. Up to now it has been business traffic that has called the shots at major airports. This section had the money to pay ticket prices that included higher landing fees, and demanded quick access into the center of cities. Holidaymakers flew from cheaper airports, often away from expensive central locations. However, recently Heathrow Airport announced that its traffic is split almost 50/50 between business and leisure. Europeans are taking more and more short breaks, and although in the United States it is still the norm for the average person to get only two weeks holiday a year, this is bound to increase.
Recently, Birmingham Airport announced new destinations including Dubai, Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore, Marseilles, Prague, Cologne, Dubrovnik and Luxor. So the airlines or their ground handling company will be requiring staff who speak the appropriate languages. Keep an eye out for press announcements like 'Airline X is opening a new service to...' This generally means that extra ground staff will be required.
