A recognized reliever

A recognized reliever

NATA cites Morristown, Barkhauer

By John F. Infanger, Editorial Director

May 2002

INDIANAPOLIS - At its annual convention here in March, the National Air Transportation Association honored Morristown (NJ) Municipal Airport director Bill Barkhauer, A.A.E., with its annual Airport Executive Partnership Award. Afterward, Barkhauer discussed his airport and industry issues with AIRPORT BUSINESS. Here are some edited highlights.

Barkhauer, 49, has served for 20 years at Morristown, a New York reliever which caters to some of the leading corporate flight departments in the U.S. He is active in the Ameri-can Association of Airport Exec-utives, where he is the current secretary-treasurer, is past chair of the Non-Hub/GA Committee, and is the current chair of the taskforce that is looking at making recommendations for security at general aviation airports.

On the NATA Airport Partnership Award's significance ...
"With all of the fallout from last September, there are a lot of challenges. Not surprisingly, and probably appropriately, commercial aviation has been first in line to get all of the attention. But GA was just as hard it, and in some ways harder hit, by the events than even the commercial segment was. I think the award highlights that, and the most important thing about it is highlighting the need for everyone in the business to work together."

On how the events of 9/11 impacted the Morristown airport ...
"Initially, like everyone else, we had a couple of days of total silence. Then, suddenly, we were taking a lot of other airports' traffic, because Westchester County airport and Morristown were the only properly equipped airports in the area that were allowed to handle Part 91-type traffic. We found ourselves with dozens and dozens of airplanes, and actually had to close our secondary runway for about three weeks and turn it into a ramp. A lot of nights we had 50 to 60 airplanes, mostly jets, parked on that runway.
"Signature's our FBO, and they sent people from other facilities that were closed and they were running a remote ramp on the middle of the airfield that saw constant activity.
"It was a challenge for them, for airport operations, and for the tower. At the same time, we had to be much more conscious of security. Of course, ratcheting up security at GA airports had to be done at our airport and others without a formal playbook."

On ongoing security initiatives at Morristown ...
"In the initial phase [after 9/11], we had 24-hour police coverage at the airport and every car was being checked; we're not in that mode now.
"We transitioned to a private security service checking all vehicular traffic during the nighttime hours, and a contingency plan with local law enforcement and our own resources that allows us to ramp up security to a higher level fairly quickly. We also met with all the tenants to get their concerns and find out what they were doing. A lot of our tenants are Fortune 500 companies that have sophisticated security at their facilities, and always have.
"Signature is our lone FBO, with operations at three physical locations. They beefed up their security significantly. They instituted a badging program for their employees and restricted passenger and air crew vehicles coming out on the ramp. They put guards at any access points to the AOA through their facilities. To their credit, they did that proactively.
"Going forward, we're going to institute a security training program for our employees and tenant personnel; a security awareness kind of thing. I'd rather have a few hundred sets of eyes that know what to watch for and what to do if something doesn't look right."