Taking off in the props department

SITUATED in the heart of the East End, with its small terminal building and short runway, and flanked by King George V Dock and Royal Albert Dock, London City Airport looks like something out of toytown.

Yet with flights to 26 European cities and 1.5 million passengers last year, the capital's third airport is definitely on the up.

Clad in a high-visibility jacket and standing beside her Land Rover alongside the runway, airfields operation assistant Sandra Lewin-don, 44, is doing a spot of bird-watching.

Having formerly been a dog groomer, she is clearly a pet lover, but not when it comes to birds at the airport. In her hand is a pistol, loaded with birdscare cartridges.

"Birds can cause passenger delays - they can get caught in an engine and do a lot of damage," she says, scanning the sky through binoculars.

"Because the runway is surrounded on three sides by water, we attract a lot of seabirds and waterfowl."

The Land Rover has a sound scare built into it, she explains. "You play the distress call to the birds and hopefully they fly off. It usually sends crows and lapwings on their way.

"But gulls are nosy. They want to find out who is in distress."

It's not only birds she has to watch out for, she adds.

Any debris on the runway can pose a serious hazard, as can the weather, and de-icing the runway is another of Lewindon's jobs.

Meanwhile, taking her ear defenders off as a flight to Amsterdam moves off down the runway is Wendy Lee, 42, a ground supervisor agent.

She says marshalling planes in and out with her red wands might look easy, but it is very skilled with little room for error.

"The stands are quite small, so you have to be able to marshall the aircraft exactly on the yellow lines, because if you don't a wing could hit the building. When the plane is taxiing onto the stand, the pilot doesn't have 100 per cent visibility, even less so at night."

Wendy, a qualified lifeguard and basketball and badminton coach, spent 18 years working in the leisure industry before deciding she needed a change of career.

When she's not marshalling planes, she's loading and unloading baggage, driving to and from the aircraft in her tug.

"When I interview staff, I tell them it's like a workout at the gym. Some bags can weigh up to 50kg.

"There have been times when we have loaded 98 bags in the front hold - then been told they have to go in the back. That's a nightmare, and will delay us working with another aircraft."

Yes, baggage does go astray, she admits. When this happens, it is either sent to its destination with a rush sticker attached to it or returned to the airport from whence it came.

Sharon Preston, 38, joined City Airport when it opened in 1987. Back then, she was a part-time customer services assistant. Today, she is head of security and operations control.

"Most people don't realise how strict the laws are on airport security.

For example, the airport has a number of restricted zones, which only certain staff are allowed to enter. We are monitored by the Department for Transport Environment and the Regions, who do regular unannounced inspections.

They will look at everything from cargo to catering."

Most of Preston's day is spent in her office and, like many of the 1,200 staff at the airport, she works either an early or a late shift.

Recently, she has overseen the introduction of new x-ray equipment for passengers and cabin luggage and also the evacuation of the airport when two untagged bags were discovered on a trolley in the terminal. Given that the Minister for Northern Ireland was flying to Belfast that day, the bomb squad were called in.

"We get a lot of MPs and MEPs passing through. We also get quite a few celebrities. Posh and Becks were here a while ago, and Bob Geldof and his kids."

Sharon's job also involves liaising with film and TV companies who often want to film at the airport.

And given its proximity to Canary Wharf and the City, the airport has now become a popular place to hold meetings, explains business controller Candice Daltrey, 28, as she sets up a conference room in the Meridian Business Centre at the terminal.

"It is quite common for someone to fly in from, say, Geneva or Zurich, meet a client and then fly straight back," she says.

Organising refreshments, stocking up the stationery in each of the 12 rooms, and checking equipment such as video players and overhead projectors are some of the tasks she and her four-woman team have to do to make sure that meetings run smoothly.

"The job suits my life. After the birth of my baby I asked the airport if I could return to work, but not five days a week. Now I work three 12-hour shifts and do a full working week in three days."

Senior airport fire officer Dave Barclay, 42, says that while his 31 firefighters and four appliances rarely have to deal with a real fire, there is plenty to keep them busy.

"We have to test equipment and do a certain amount of practical and technical training each day, such as becoming familiar with different makes of aircraft and refreshing our memories about how to use breathing apparatus.

"At the weekend, we had a standby for an aircraft that didn't have all its lights working. And we've also had to deal with overheated undercarriages."

A mock-up of an aircraft provides the firefighters with the chance to practise their search and rescue procedures. Dave says his crew once had to take one of their boats into the dock to rescue a fox that had fallen in.

* See page 25 for a course to defeat your fear of flying

Copyright 2001
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