WELCOME TO
AIRPORT
VOICE
YOUR COMMUNITY
NEWS MEDIA
TWITTER
INSTAGRAM
QNS
LINKEDIN
PRESIDENT AND PUBLISHER
Victoria Schneps-Yunis
CEO AND CO-PUBLISHER
Joshua Schneps
SCHNEPS MEDIA
AIRPORT VOICE
GENERAL INFORMATION 718-224-5863 EXT 0
This newspaper is not responsible for typographical errors in ads beyond the cost of the space occupied by the error. All rights reserved. Copyright © 2018 by Brooklyn Courier Life
LLC. The content of this newspaper is protected by Federal copyright law. This newspaper, its advertisements, articles and photographs may not be reproduced, either in whole or part,
without permission in writing from the publisher except brief portions for purposes of review or commentary consistent with the law. Postmaster, send address changes to Brooklyn
Courier Life LLC, One MetroTech North, 10th Floor, Brooklyn, NY 11201.
AIRPORT V 2 OICE, SEPTEMBER 2020
PUBLISHER & EDITOR: Jeffrey Yapalater • V.P. OF ADVERTISING: Ralph D’Onofrio
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Robb Pozarycki • COPY EDITOR: Emily Davenport
ART DIRECTOR: Leah Mitch • WEB DESIGNER: Sylvan Migdal
PRODUCTION ARTISTS: Arthur Arutyunov, Gardy Charles, Earl Ferrer, John Napoli, Mark Ramos, Connie Sulsenti, Jean Walsh
Airport Voice
MEMBER:
INSIDE
Join us on Social Media
with these QR code links.
AIRPORT VOICE
HOW TO REACH US
Jeff Yapalater
516-425-4645
JFK September GM Resumption of services
BY JEFF YAPALATER
The JFK September General Managers
meeting was held virtually on September
2nd. Highlights included the status
of JFK redevelopment, resumption
of services, plans for 9-11 and airport updates
from many stakeholders.
On the JFK Redevelopment side, Port
Jim Heitman provided an overview of
the plan, and said it essentially was “ we
are on pause”. He said that Port is assessing
the capital plan and is still working
with investors for T1 & T6. There may
be maybe a scoping down the degree of
redevelopment based on airline capacity,
revenues and the funding that Port
needs from Congress for infrastructure
and the economy. He said that while
there is some ongoing contracting engineering
services there will not be any
shovel in the ground until next year.
The one project that is continuing is
the American Airline terminal expansion
which was begun before the pandemic.
Stakeholder reports:
Port Authority: Asst, Mgr. Aeronautical
Services Guillio Minguillo review
the basics of airport prevention of Covid
with social distancing, wearing masks,
washing hands and signage designed to
keep people aware of the basics of safety
and health.
-Air Traffic Control:Dave Siewert
shared the dismal news that JFK flights
have gone from a daily 1300 or so a day in
2019 to under 400 a day. His staff is running
mainly virtual when possible.
CBP:News from the Customs & Border
Patrol included the announcement
of new personnel changes with Sal Ingrassia
as Acting Port Director, Andrew
Renna as Asst. Port Director, Michael
Damato as Chief of Staff, Joseph Finn
as Cargo Chief, Paul Gunther as Deputy
Chief Agriculture.
Ingrassia announced that the Global
Entry Office is back in business, that the
Chase office is running smoothly and
that renovation and upgrading of the
CBP side of the USPS mail facility is under
way. He said that this was important
in that lots of narcotics are attempting to
be smuggled
through the facility and that the new
technology will help mitigate this effort.
CDC: Commander Matt Palo requested
all community assistance in recognizing
any ill passengers that can be
referred to CDC. He said that most procedures
have remained the same for international
travel, (although these changed
a week after he report. See story in this
issue.)
PAPD: Inspector Bellucci reported
that crime has been commensurate with
the volume of passengers and the PAPD
force is appropriately deployed and functioning
in same areas as before Covid.
There is a focus on the homeless at night
working with Urban Pathways daily
for the safety and health of travelers
and the indigent. He also said that the
hustlers were back at it again, accessing
restricted areas. The PAPD has been
working with the Queens DA to legally
impose the highest fine for violations to
keep the hustlers away from the airport.
Aeronautics: Interim Manager Aeronautics
John Arancio reported that Port
is in preparation for snow season with a
checklist training, equipment and dry
runs is in the works and a table top exercise
planned for the first week in November
for snow plans. He added that
construction was completed on C2C3
taxiways for the larger 747 and A380s
and said this was a successful project for
the community.
KAAMCO-President Roger Scott announced
that AA Brian Cooley has accepted
Chair of the Cargo Committee.
Scott also asked if Port has made any
other cost reduction decisions that will
have a favorable impact on the airlines.
Teresa Rizzuto closed with a request
that all employees fill out the Port questionnaire.
Resumption of Services
Since May, the Port has been implementing
a series of initiatives, involving
the airports in particular, that will
serve to protect the public health of travellers
and the workers at the airports.
The Port holds regular meetings to review
the degree of implementation and
discuss the success and weaknesses of
the planned actions.
On the most recent call, these resumption
of services of many components
from the Port Authority were discussed
and reviewed by the terminals,
federal partners, airlines and stakeholders
which include PPE, sanitization
methodology, social distancing, masks,
touchless transactions, thermal imaging
and more. These protocols are in
place and many additional others are in
progress to insure employee and passenger
safety when traveling.
According to Deputy GM Teresa Rizzuto,
the list of changes mandated by
the General Managers Bulletin of June
which laid out a list of covid related
health at the airport, has been largely
completed with partners working together.
On-site visits by Depart of Aviation
management recently toured several
building to assess the level of compliance
which was deemed to be in order.
Port had specified among other
things, signage, use of masks throughout
the travel process once in entering
the terminal, social distancing and ubiquitous
hand sanitizing stations.
Terminals are taking the health
steps even further with some temperature
checking , other technological testing,
and TSA officers are now wearing
face masks with Plexiglas providing a
shield between customers service agents
and customers. Rizzuto reported that
feedback from passengers were positive
with a heightened sense of security. She
said that the goal is ”to make everyone
feel comfortable to travel and come to
work and to insure that JFK is a World
Class Covid Safe environment.” Case in
point is the introduction of the Xpres-
Check testing facility at JFK and EWR
for both employees and passengers. This
is supported by the Port in further effort
to identify and prevent the spread the
spread of the illness.
Terminals 1 and 4 have taken steps
to add temperature taking, or thermal
imaging of all passing through the restricted
terminal areas. Sanitization of
wheelchairs is also underway as well as
vending machines for a variety of personal
protection items.
The Port is listening to stakeholders
in one case who recommended more
trash bins throughout bins throughout
the airport specifically identified for
used PPE.
Port is requesting that working together
is the key way in which a level
of comfort and safety is felt by the average
traveler who will inevitably find
these measure conducive to a return to
flying through a comfortable and safe
journey.