Most airport authorities are responsible for one or two airports. Jacksonville Aviation Authority in Northeast Florida is operating on a slightly larger scale than that. This authority is responsible for not two or even three, but four airports, each of them handling a different sector and has its own drastically different requirements.
Those airports are Jacksonville International Airport (JAX), JAXEX at Craig Airport (CRG), Herlong Recreational Airport (HEG), and Cecil Airport (VQQ). Between them, those airports are an international airport, a small hobbyist’s airport, a corporate airport for business travellers, and a major industrial and military airport.
Managing this many different parts of the aviation sector is no mean feat, especially across four separate locations.
“We have pretty healthy discussions. As the CEO, I can’t be everywhere at once, but I have incredible staff managing each of these facilities. They will do whatever it takes to get what they need,” explains Mark VanLoh, CEO of Jacksonville Aviation Authority. “We try and make everybody happy at the same time, which, as you know, doesn’t work too often, but we get the best results we can.”
Expecting the Unexpected
It is work that often requires overcoming serious and unexpected challenges. For example, one year ago, a car pulled into a garage at Jacksonville International Airport. Four hours later, that car was engulfed in flames. The ensuing blaze fully destroyed another 50 automobiles, while also melting the beams of the garage, disabling and eventually collapsing three floors of the building.
“It shut the airport down. We had to use airport firefighting foam to put the fire out. It caused a traffic nightmare,” recalls VanLoh. “It’s not something you can plan for at an airport. We were prepared for extreme weather events and aeroplane incidents, but nobody expected a garage fire.”
Ultimately, however, the disaster proved an opportunity for Jacksonville Aviation Authority to show just what its people could do.
“The staff really came together. We were able to open the airport within five hours, then we had to contact all of these people who were on holiday to let them know what had happened to their car,” VanLoh says. “To date, that garage is still closed and being engineered for reconstruction, and we lost 800 short-term parking spaces, which are the highest revenue-generating parking spaces at an airport.”
That is a big dent for any airport, but still a hugely successful outcome under the circumstances. This is because, though a garage fire might be unexpected, Jacksonville Aviation Authority has contingency plans in place for the unexpected.
“We have an emergency notice system that, depending on the situation, contacts the appropriate people via email,” VanLoh tells us. “The alert went out, people responded, meeting in our ready room, and we stayed there for days in a row, keeping everything running for 24 hours to make sure the airport stayed online and affected car owners were contacted.”
With the structural damage that had taken place, even those whose cars had survived the disaster would not be able to take those cars out of the garage for weeks.
“You can imagine the types of calls our people had to listen to,” VanLoh says.
Protecting People and Planet
Of course, the secret to the airport’s success in taking on this and other challenges comes down to the people Jacksonville Aviation Authority employs.
“Recruiting from other airports is quite easy because we’re in Florida, so a lot of interested people want to move here to enjoy the low cost of living and lack of state income tax,” says VanLoh. “Once you get that employee on staff, it is critical to give them what they need, including training, time off, and a great medical healthcare benefits program. Then we always try to promote from within.”
Beyond those benefits, a big part of Jacksonville Aviation Authority’s offering to staff, however, is simply “variety.”
“Having four airports makes it easy to keep people interested in a job, because if they get burned out in one location, we can move them to a completely new position,” VanLoh explains.
Whichever airport the Authority is looking after, some things stay the same. Sustainability is a growing priority for the aviation sector around the world, and being based in Florida only emphasises that.
“Natural and fresh water is very important to us. We have an incredible aquifer, so we will do anything to keep that drinking water safe,” VanLoh says. “Airports are paying attention to spills, well digging, and anything else that might contaminate that water.”
VanLoh is also passionate about protecting the woodlands around Jacksonville Aviation Authority’s airports.
“We keep everything pristine and natural,” he says. “We have experimented with solar energy, and it has its pluses and minuses. Wind isn’t possible here, but we are keeping electrical vehicles charged and giving them the power they need. Our strategy is to take a broad approach in everything we can do environmentally, ensuring a sustainable future for our airports.”
Ready for the Future
As well as meeting the challenges of sustainability, Jacksonville Aviation Authority must also rise to the challenges presented by increasing jet fuel costs and the Middle East crisis, just like many other airports.
“It will be a difficult summer, so we are continuing to monitor the situation and ensure everything continues safely,” says VanLoh.
But whatever challenges they face, every airport under the Jacksonville Aviation Authority is growing, both in terms of passenger and plane numbers, and through ongoing construction projects at every airport site.
“We have a new concourse opening at Christmas, and a 2,000-space parking facility opening in the fall,” VanLoh says.
But the Authority is not just growing through the airports already under its oversight.
“We have received interest from other airports that want to have us manage their facilities for them,” VanLoh tells us. “Some smaller cities don’t have the expertise or financial wherewithal to run their airports, so they reach out to us. That is something we can look forward to in the future.”