Falklands : Air Movements Officers Visit the Falklands
Submitted by Falkland Islands News Network (Juanita Brock) 20.03.2006 (Article Archived on 03.04.2006)
The leaders responsible for all aspects of transport on the Air-bridge have visited the Falklands.
AIR MOVEMENTS OFFICERS VISIT THE FALKLANDS
By J. Brock (FINN)
Richard Pratley, Mike Stepney and Dan Wober, all Squadron Leaders, have been visiting the Falkland Islands this week to see first hand how passengers on the Airbridge are handled and loads distributed as well as the standard of care each person using the service are receiving.
Squadron Leader Richard Pratley at present is the Senior Movements Officer at RAF Brize Norton. His responsibilities deal with the handling of passengers and their baggage, the loading of the aircraft, as well as cargo that goes on the aircraft. He is a conduit for in-flight catering and fuel as well as many other related areas. He is the UK end of the air-bridge at the tactical level and for loading people, equipment. Squadron Leader Mike Stepney is Richard Pratley’s opposite number in the Falkland Islands. He has the same responsibilities for the airport but also the Maritime Port at Mount Pleasant. He also, like his UK counterpart, receives feedback from passengers as well as crews and support staff. Squadron Leader Dan Wober is the air passenger policy strategist for defence transport at RAF Brize Norton. The Movements agency details him. That organisation charters the Air Atlantic Company to handle the air-bridge and the contract details. He sets the policy on who is allowed to travel on aircraft of the air transport fleet, how they are classified and what uniform they should be wearing if they are Military. Sq Ldr. Stepney is new in post. He wants to listen to people at this end on their views about the air-bridge. Comments received will be passed on to the relevant authorities.
All three men visited Councillors as well as other Government officials in Stanley while they were here getting views and gathering information from the Mount Pleasant end of the air-bridge. On Friday afternoon they had an opportunity to field questions from the media. Rather than steal the thunder from what the others asked and hoped to report, FINN is going to summarise the important bits and transcribe the question and answers that it asked during the press conference. Many questions that FINN had were voiced by Penguin News and FIRS as well.
CIVILIAN PASSENGER HANDLING:
A wide discussion occurred on Friday morning with relevant officials and Councillors. There were no specific issues that were recurrent. The movers are trying to get across the message that is there is a significant volume of passengers and freight going through Brize Norton. In rough terms, about 20,000 a month and 2,000 tonnes of freight go through for the Falklands. Though the freight volume is small, there is a significant volume in civilians. They are established in terms of manpower and resourced in terms of facilities against the requirement to move Military personnel through a Military airhead. Recent years have brought an increase in civilian passengers. The way the Military does business now reflects the different civilian and military customer coming through. Seeing that both military and civilian passengers have travelled through commercial airports they will have a different level of expectation. The Military want to cater for these levels of expectation. Public money has been used to upgrade facilities at Brize Norton. Non-public money has been invested in things like internet facilities, vending machines and plasma screen TVs.
The last 6 months have been difficult at Brize Norton because the runway was re-furbished. Detailed planning had to be carried out to ensure that all passengers were catered for when they landed at alternative airheads.
There is still work to do in terms if the Military’s ability to deliver the level of service their customers expect. They are constrained in terms of the amount of money available and the staff available as well as their level of experience. The commitments faced elsewhere affect the constraints that are levied against the air-bridge.
Finally, there is no distinction on the air-bridge between Military and Civilians. Seats are allocated electronically due to loading priorities. Aircraft are generally loaded from the rear first. Criteria exist for VIPs, business class and what could be called “economy” class – the most convenient and friendly, according to FINN, who travels to Ascension Island that way. Any special requirements can be notified at booking. Medical and dietary requirements can and should happen routinely.
FINN: We have had service by Air Luxor and British Midlands, What is the policy for contracting civilian aircraft?
Sq. Leader Richard Pratley: The process is pretty much identical regards whether we were to try and source an aircraft to try and fly the Falkland Islands Airbridge or whether we were trying to take an aircraft from the commercial industry to go out to Afghanistan or anywhere else in the world. There is a statement requirement produced. The Statement of Requirement (SOR) articulates the type and level of service as well as a number of different categories what we expect. And, it gives a commercial organisation the opportunity to bid to provide the service against that statement of requirement. With any SOR, it would engage with the theatre you are providing service to, to make sure that the type of product we are going to get. There is then a commercial legal requirement to go out in a certain manner – the value and length of the contract – it has to be advertised in a number of commercial journals and bids are invited from the commercial sector against that Statement of Requirement by a certain date. Then the process splits into two.
And, my side of the house is very much the technical component and we also have a commercial officer who looks at the commercial component. We would get copies of the technical bids that would come back but at no stage would we have visibility of the prices. I would be looking at the technical specifications to see if it matched what we needed. And, we would score each bid against a matrix to assess the goods, bad’s and indifference of the various bids we received. At the same time a different group of people in the commercial world would be looking at the same bids and be looking at the technical content but in less detail. And they very much more will be focused on the commercial aspects. (Terms and conditions and pricing) We then go into a common meeting where the technical team and the commercial team go through the bids a bid at a time and look at both technical and commercial packages together. Then we assess the suitability. What we went for was not the cheapest. It was best value for money. I am absolutely comfortable with the service that we have now. We hold a series of contract review meetings to assess whether the performance indicators within the contract are being met, so it is monitored on an on-going basis. These contract meetings generally take place every six months. For obvious reasons, we wouldn’t wait six months to raise any issues.
FINN: Is the Air-bridge going to be replaced by a civilian entity?
Sq. Leader Richard Pratley: It is not an MoD piece of work to decide whether or not this route should be a commercial solution or whether it should be a third party logistical provider. It is very much toe Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Falkland Islands Government business. The Military have a requirement to maintain a presence here in accordance with the joint policy statement, etc. We potentially could become a customer and say we have a requirement for this many people and this many passengers. That’s essentially what we did as part of the Statement of requirement process. We took what the Military requirement was, what the local Government requirement was and the other interested parties and that formed the basis of our standard requirement. Having seen the amount of commercial influence across Government as a whole, I think there is going to be a constant requirement to assess and re-assess and identify whether this solution that is in place is best value for money and whether it represents the best overall solution. From a purely personal perspective, I would see it as being part of that process to consistently examine the way the Falkland Islands Air-bridge is provided.
It could well be, as we saw several months ago, the air-bridge could be provided by a Military Tri-star again. There is a raft of different potential commercial and military options, which I would see as being considered each time a re-assessment of the services being provided takes place. As the Military airhead in the UK, we are tasked to execute policy and what we do is our best to provide it. With the benefit of my previous experience within the Defence Transport Movements Agency, the MoD in association with the FCO are constantly looking at trying to establish best value for money.
Sq. Leader Mike Stepney: It’s a constant evaluation to achieve the best value for money, really!
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