Airport life Overview April-May quiet
The impact of Covoid19
came hard and fast upon the
world, New York, and at JFK
Airport.
Due to the federal government
restrictions on flights
from many overseas airports,
the lack of passengers on domestic
airlines , rapid
spreading of the virus
throughout the population,
quarantining and self-isolation,
all Port airports seemed
like ghost towns.
Without flights and passengers,
most concessions were
closed, and passenger transportation
services slowed to a
trickle.
As our communities sat
isolated at home, many of the
stakeholders workforce were
active at the airports including
terminal operators staff,
ramp, cleaning, security,
TSA, CBP, CDC and other federal
agency personnel. These
people had to be at the airport
to keep the operations running.
These were our essential
workers. It was sad to see the
number of deaths in the families
of some of our airport
community. We are a community
of 6 degrees of separation
so it seemed we were all grieving
over a death.
Covid continued to bear
down on the whole region in
March, April and may.
Airlines travel dropped
90%, many people furloughed
for an indeterminate amount
of time, and the Port Authority
reached out to the federal
government
to provide assistance for
infrastructure jobs that would
keep people working during
the economic and health crisis.
The Chinese economy
which had been frozen with
factories closed
did not ship the huge number
of e-commerce products
during March and April and
this severely affected the airport
cargo business.
But, as the Chinese factories
came back online and
the nation needed quickly
produced PPE products, the
one sector that showed steady
business was the cargo world.
Air cargo flights, ground handlers,
customs brokers and
truckers constituted a workforce
bringing
much needed medical products
to this country. Tens of
flights daily arrived at JFK
for instance,
keeping this sector very
busy and companies survived.
Customs Border Protection
were close on hand to make
16 AIRPORT VOICE, JUNE 2020
sure that import compliance
was met, and supervised the
products coming into this
country.
It was also a time that
smugglers decided to try to
slip in narcotics and bad medical
products in the cargo shipments.
Due to the CBP, CDC
and FDA, may illicit goods
were intercepted.
In some cases, shipments
were held by CBP because
of unauthorized or non-FDA
compliant manufacturing, or
interception of totally illegitimate
health products.
The air cargo was the supple
pipeline of masks, gowns
that came in by the millions
weekly.
For the first time in years,
unused passenger aircraft
were converted to cargo only
flights. Since airlines lease
many aircraft, it was decided
to use existing fleets to bring
the PPE goods to the US rather
than hire additional conventional
air freighters.
However the goods arrived,
cargo warehouses were generally
full with goods waiting
for truckers to begin the delivery
to warehouses all around
the country.
As May ended, so did the
huge influx of medical and
health goods. Now, More conventional
cargo has begun to
arrive from overseas in the
passenger-cargo planes, and
with the resumption of some
international flights,
this business will increase.
It will offset the loss of passengers
somewhat but the airlines
will still lose money for
the foreseeable future.
The terminals are now in
the process of gearing up for
new phases of economic comeback.
They are instituting a
number of health based initiatives
created for safe travel
and safe working conditions.
Every company is instituting
strong heal and related
security features so that the
public and workforce return
to a clean environment.
The number of actual traveling
passengers in May 2019
was over 25,000 a day at JFK.
Currently there are around
6,000 a day. Far from an avalanche
of travelers but the uptick
in travel that will lead to
more and more trips over the
months.
According to airline experts,
it too 3 years after 9-11
for passenger travel to come
back to previous levels. It took
cargo 10 years. It is unclear
whether the same time will
transpire to recover from the
covid crisis.
with the opening of the
LaGuardia new LGP Terminal
B, there may be renewed
support in Congress to fund
the Port’s ambitions to continue
with the development
of the JFK Airport. It has
been reported that tens of
thousands of jobs will be
created during the projected
five year plan.
Infrastructure will have
to continue to meet the unemployment
crisis that covidvirus
has created.
June is halfway way
gone and there has been a
slight uptick in passenger
f lights mainly domestically.
It is hopeful that with the
initiatives in place by all the
terminals, airlines, Port and
stakeholders that the public
will be feel confident to fly
again and to get the airports
working in greater capacity as
July approaches.
Our infection rate has flattened
due to the efforts by
many of our citizens. This
pause in the spread of the illness
will give us an opportunity
to ease back into work,
begin to establish new norms,
and look forward to a better
day.
Blue Porter & Alpha Priority donate
masks to T4 employees.
Non-FDA medicine intercepted by CBP.