Local Runway Safety Team meetings are regularly held during the APEX in Safety reviews, wherein participants share international Local Runway Safety Team (LRST) best practices, lessons learned, campaigns and hot topics.
reporting systems and safety culture. By inviting the various stakeholders to the workshop on the last day of the assessment, the APEX Team will help set up the LRST and provide mentorship in order to carry out effective meetings. Best practices for maintaining a safe runway
The runway is considered the most critical infrastructure at the airport, so all measures deemed necessary for the maintenance of the runway and compliance with regulation and best practices at the international level must be adopted to safeguard airport operations. This will help to ensure the mitigation of safety incidents involving aircraft. The forum in which runway safety should be discussed to guarantee minimum safety conditions and contribute to the adoption of best practices is the LRST, whose chair should be held by the airport operator, as it manages the airport infrastructure and is the certificate holder. On-site safety workshops Earlier this year, seeing the need to provide more assistance to airports in this regard, the APEX in Safety Team added a new element to its offering to complement onsite reviews. The APEX Team would determine whether the host airport had an LRST beforehand, and then proceed to set up a workshop if deemed necessary.
LRST meetings should focus on the design and maintenance of the runway, markings, signs and lighting, standard operating procedures, birds and wildlife, foreign object debris (FOD) and incursions and excursions. Risk assessments should be conducted along with investigations of incidents occurring on the airfield. The workshop sessions include all stakeholders who should attend the LRST meetings so that they can get a firsthand briefing on the key role they must play to create a strong and reliable working group. Regular members should include the below stakeholders, but note that this is by no means an exhaustive list as every airport is unique: • • • •
aerodrome operators; air traffic services; commercial air operators; representatives of flight crews familiar with the aerodrome; and, • representatives from the general aviation community (if applicable).
The LRST workshop provides an extensive and comprehensive set of tools for the host airport to use in setting up their committee. Throughout the week, while assessing the various safety areas, the APEX Team is able to get a clear understanding of the state of the infrastructure, procedures,
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