In an FAA conference in 2010, I sat in a GIS presentation that left many Airport Directors/Managers baffled.  The FAA personnel posed a few  questions to the audience asking us to raise our hand if we didn’t think we initially needed the internet to run our enterprise. Everyone’s hand went up in the air.  The FAA then asked, “How about email?” Again everyone’s hand went up in the air.  “Now, whose airport can survive today without it?” Not one hand was raised.  The FAA then boldly stated, “Your GIS will become the daily resource for your airport.”

I personally see it as the backbone of the Airport.  After writing the GIS Assessment Plan for Baton Rouge International Airport alongside the founders of GEO-Jobe, I realized how necessary it is for an airport to utilize a GIS.  Many Airport departments are independent from one another and do not communicate with one another through one system.  Data, reports, and analysis are not only extremely slow to process but are either printed and hand delivered or saved and emailed amongst Airport Staff.  After studying many of the major airport departments prior to their GIS implementation, I found that most airports do not manage their space well and are losing revenue because of it. With spatial data management tools, they gain many advantages including  cost and time saving solutions, the ability to know how the entire airport system connects and operates, and even increased revenue growth.  A full fledged GIS paired with an Airport Director/Department Managers that are well educated with their GIS will give you an airport that can produce more deliverables per second.  For instance, in a recent meeting with one of our Airport clients, they had spent the last two weeks to measure something as simple as a small area of airport owned property.  In the meeting they asked us how long it would take their new GIS we developed (and were presenting to them) to measure the same area.  Using an area measuring tool, the same property was  measured accurately  in under 15 seconds.

What will foster efficiency? To eliminate the barriers between the departments and an Airport’s GIS, all department users must be deeply rooted in ongoing discussions with their GIS division (wholly owned department or Consultants) to provide feedback on tools that need to be developed and updated.  In order to do this, all users will need to have a knowledge and understanding of the tools that were developed for their departments use.  I’ll refer back to my previous example.  Let’s say the planning department knew that the GIS could measure an area of Airport property but didn’t know how to do it themselves.  Instead of the Planning Departments VP using the tools built for him to make a decision, he calls/emails the GIS department, they place it on their to-do-list, and return with an answer later in the day (or next day).  In the time it took the Planning Departments VP to communicate to the GIS department that he needs an area measured he could have already measured it himself, found the answer, and made an informal decision.

Airport GIS Departments and Consultants should be used to provide additional support (not basic support) to the rest of the Airport staff.  They should be used to provide answers to complex decisions and to build applications, not provide information already available through simple tools.  This is why it is important for Airport Directors and Department Managers to be well-versed in their GIS.  An Airport Director will have more control of the Airport when he or she can visually see it operating in real-time through a GIS.  Many large Airports will (or already) have an entire GIS department in place while Mid-Sized to Small Airports should consider hiring GIS Consultants to best manage their system.  The question is, will future Airport Directors and Department Managers need a GIS background?  Not necassarily.  However, they will need to understand what questions their GIS can answer and this understanding is best learned through training/experience with a GIS and their knowledge of it’s usefulness.