That’s a very nice piece of work on planning runway rehabilitation projects by CAA SRG in CAP 781. I quote from its introduction:
As runways can have up to a 30 year life span depending on traffic levels, it is quite possible that, at a number of aerodromes, those in charge of the project will never have attempted to rehabilitate a runway nor will ever be involved with such a project again. Only at the biggest, most heavily trafficked airports is it likely that resurfacing part or all of a runway occurs more frequently and hence a body of knowledge and experience can be assembled.
Over the last few years the changes in the UK air transport industry have seen a number of factors affect aerodromes. Due to the national increase in passengers travelling, smaller regional aerodromes have experienced a consequent increase in runway use accelerating the need for major maintenance. Another important impact has been the loss of aviation operational experience from the industry and an increasing number of senior managers entering from other spheres, instead of rising through the operational ranks.
These, together with recent experiences at a number of aerodromes, have led the CAA to identify an increased level of risk in the case of runway rehabilitation projects, especially those being undertaken by ALHs with little or no experience of such a project where public transport jet or turboprop movements are to continue during the work. The CAA believes that the provision of guidance material regarding the management of a rehabilitation programme will be beneficial to industry in helping to reduce these risks.
That document, and those exact words, have circulated amongst airport engineers in more countries than just the UK. The loss of expertise and the increased level of risk in runway rehabilitation projects can be just as easily found in other countries, and the CAP 781 has much to commend it for many countries.
This document
did come directly from the lessons of other airfields, and it pulls together a lot of industry knowledge (and not just from the UK). I suspect that in the UK now, all regional airports considering resurfacing read this document beforehand. And Paxboy, I do believe that CAA-SRG really did decide that "The next time a field announces a resurfacing project, we'll be sure to make sure that they have learnt from others. After all, our job is safety."
Now let me turn my attention to Bristol International Airport. And my wrath after reading their statement. Have they learned nothing from the incident? Do they think that we are as big a fool as they are, and will believe this? I explained at the time that this was not ‘runway resurfacing’ work. It was large scale work better described as reconstruction or rebuilding, not as resurfacing. Reconstruction is a whole different ball game. While resurfacing usually happens while the runway is left in service, reconstruction is usually not.
At the time I said
There is a subset of airports that might be characterised as those with only one runway and non aviation people in charge. Some airport managers/boards are not aviation people at all, and neither understand the concept of redundancy nor care about operations. They operate inadequately, and others suffer as a result. This is NOTHING to do with the aviation professionals that work at the airport, and everything to do with the Board and most senior management of the airport company.
I guess not too much has changed at Bristol.
Maybe they’ve got Skippy back doing their press releases?