case study
Rick Husband Amarillo International Airport is using GIS to unite its airfield safety inspection program with its asset and maintenance management processes to significantly increase efficiencies while improving operational safety.
Maintaining the safety of an airport's runways, taxiways, and ramps requires dedicated teams focused on many details. Daily inspections are conducted on every light, pavement marking, navigational aid, and airfield sign to ensure flight safety conditions are maintained both on and off the airfield. The daily safety inspection is a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requirement for Part 139 certified airports and requires such airports to demonstrate they have adopted programs to ensure appropriate safety maintenance procedures for the airfield, including proper recordkeeping.
The FAA conducts a yearly audit of these Part 139 airports to certify they have followed their adopted procedures and documented not only their daily inspections but also the required maintenance activities. Historically, the self-inspection process has relied on paper forms, resulting in large volumes of historical records that must be retrieved for an annual audit.
As a result, digitization of the airfield safety inspection process—moving from paper inspection forms to digitally collected inspections—has been gaining momentum at airports across the country. This shift from paper to digital has the advantage of removing errors from the reporting procedures, and the centralization of recordkeeping injects consistency and efficiency into both the inspection and auditing processes.
The Rick Husband Amarillo International Airport, located in Potter County, Texas, had already been successfully using a digital inspection software solution since November 2016. The airport was, however, looking to digitally transform several other processes and wanted to move away from having a series of discrete, stand-alone software systems. It was interested in a common system that could enable better oversight and more harmonious collaboration between different tasks and stakeholders. Geographic information system (GIS) technology from Esri provides the ability to bring together self-inspection and asset management in an online, cloud-based form while also offering development resources for emerging program needs.
The airport implemented ArcGIS Online during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the system went live in August 2022 after 12 months of preparatory work.
“The centerpiece is hazard identification—having that chain of custody and accountability. The preexisting software served us well as a first foray into digital inspections, but we were looking for a 'Swiss Army knife' rather than lots of separate solutions. That's where Esri came in,” said Thomas Oscarsson, assistant director of aviation for Amarillo airport.
All communities want to see their airports run safely. Oftentimes, airports are seen as a source of pride and innovation and represent a visitor's first impression to each community. Investments in technology have positive impacts on the passenger experience, as well as on stakeholders, airport staff, and regulators.
Inspection frequency can vary from daily (and often nightly) visual inspections to more significantly detailed periodic inspections that look at specifics, such as airfield markings and signage. Then there are special inspections, which are conducted after a significant event (e.g., severe weather, construction activity, or aircraft accidents/incidents) to document the condition of the airfield and note any discrepancies to correct so the airport can maintain Part 139 compliance.
“What these various inspections do is help to build the safety, environmental, and economic case for infrastructure investment,” according to Oscarsson. “Digitization removes human error and allows the information to inform decision-making and set priorities. Additionally, consolidating where all this information is stored allows for greater efficiencies in project development and a more complete picture of our cost implications, both operational and replacement. Our recent replacement of two taxiways illustrates why that's important.”
The FAA instituted a Pavement Management Program (PMP), which focuses primarily on airfield pavement condition and identifies and prioritizes future rehabilitation and reconstruction projects.
“When the airport seeks funding opportunities for pavement improvements, the FAA will want to know what investments in preventative maintenance the airport has made before it funds those improvements,” Oscarsson continued. “GIS facilitates the move from a sole use solution for inspections to a platform that incorporates asset management, as well as the future integration of our safety management systems and a planning tool for compatible land use around the airport.”
Amarillo airport's evolution to a more integrated system started with the basic Part 139 self-inspection program and then spurred improvements to fuel farm inspections, wildlife strikes, and winter operations. These additional tasks were added because, as Oscarsson observed, all the inspections and processes needed to live in the same environment where they were easily accessible.
“The FAA has also made a big push to improve winter operations at commercial airports . . . involving a complete rewrite of the Snow and Ice Control Plan,” said Oscarsson. “We automated the way we document winter events.”
The shift from pen and paper to apps and tablet has been very well received by the operations staff on the ground. By providing a click-through environment, which includes the mobile field data collection solution ArcGIS Survey123, it protects both the individual and the organization from the consequences of human error. Open participation and the buy-in from staff encourages product use and spurs future innovations that benefit the airport and the industry.
“It's imperative that we get out of a siloed program mindset and empower those who are closest to work being done to participate in program and product development,” said Oscarsson. "It's a continual improvement process, and it's part of an entire airport ecosystem.”
Consolidation and digitization of safety inspections also make the FAA's job of auditing much easier. As Oscarsson points out, “A day taken to trawl through paperwork across multiple on-site locations can be reduced down to an hour or so because everything's 'just there.' Because we're now using a dashboard accessible to the FAA, the inspector can review these records from their office and utilize the site inspection for more mobile work. This process makes scheduling the inspection a little easier and allows the inspector to conduct the inspection more efficiently.”
By using an integrated system with ArcGIS Dashboards, previously unnoticed underlying issues can be identified, which were often overlooked in a pen-and-paper setting. With a dashboard, staff can point, click, and filter their way to isolating trends that require corrective actions or use that same information to justify maintaining the current approach.
The ability to scale and add new applications and features is a particularly useful aspect of the GIS platform. While Part 139 safety inspections provide a set of rules that all Part 139 airports need to follow, each airport designs its procedures a bit differently.
“Each has unique circumstances and ways to address the requirements,” said Oscarsson. "But all must meet common standards, and within the Airport Certification Manual, there are lots of things that you can pull out as stand-alone documents.”
One example of this is the airport emergency management plan. By digitizing and automating this process, staff can run checklists and make critical decisions faster.
Another area of focus is the airport Wildlife Hazard Management Plan (WHMP). Airport staff have observed an increase in prairie dogs, which themselves are not necessarily a threat to aviation, but their predators are. As Oscarsson noted, “We see a lot of red-tailed hawks, harriers, and other birds of prey. Those are the real hazards to aircraft, so you mitigate the threat by controlling the food source.”
“Again, by having all your information from multiple years in a single dashboard environment, you can see any trends in wildlife strikes,” continued Oscarsson. “That 'God's-eye view' enables you to speak to your biologist about how to drive those trends down. Having evidence of those trends allows you to demonstrate to the FAA that you have done as much as possible to minimize those risks.”
Integrating and digitizing these various inspection routines started a virtuous cycle of further improvements at the airport. The next step was integration with the airport's asset and maintenance management software—Infor—to further streamline its work order processes. Now, when a safety inspection identifies a problem, a work order is immediately initiated in the Infor system, and the status of the work order is tracked in an Esri dashboard. The completed work order then comes back to the operations staff as a reinspection task.
At the same time, the director of aviation receives the necessary analytic data for planning and budgetary purposes through the Infor dashboard, and the operations/maintenance staff have a better visualization and inspection tool through Esri, representing a balanced approach to serving the needs for the entire airport.
This, as Oscarsson emphasized, has added to the confidence in being able to create a wholly digitized solution encompassing all the airport's regulatory programs.
“One thing we want to do is to create a tool with our planning and zoning department that identifies potential compatible land-use issues in the early stages of project development,” said Oscarsson. “Through the application process, this tool can use applicant data to identify potential obstructions to navigable airspace, wildlife attractants, and noise compatibility issues based on established ordinances and data stored within the airport's GIS.”
Amarillo airport was amazed at how relatively easy the solution's implementation proved to be. The airport has no GIS manager or specialists, so they had to rely on team collaboration between Esri's professional services, the City of Amarillo's GIS department, and airport staff. And since the applications all run on ArcGIS Online, there is no need for dedicated GIS staff to manage the suite of applications.
“All this happened through a pandemic lockdown without anyone meeting face-to-face,” observed Oscarsson. “An FAA requirement is that before anything new is implemented, people must be properly trained and qualified. But really . . . what makes implementation easy is the ability to point and click your way through to whatever you need.”
The digital transformation has sparked innovative growth at the Amarillo airport, with much more to come.
The preexisting software served us well as a first foray into digital inspections, but we were looking for a 'Swiss Army knife' rather than lots of separate solutions. That's where Esri came in.