Cordoba Airport ends six weeks of intense activity today

This route was added in connection with Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, which was activated on July 23.Aerial Nostrum He flew to this island on Tuesday, with a round trip service – in total, there were twelve. The last day this connection was active was August 27. When it started its flights from Cordoba, Air Nostrum announced that this summer it would offer 4,800 seats on these two routes. According to official statistics from AENA, in July, Air Nostrum flights added, between departures and arrivals, 996 passengers. The importance of this company’s operations is reflected in the fact that it contributed to almost 63% of the aerodrome’s users in the seventh month (1,587).

Inside Cordoba Airport Around forty professionals work daily to ensure that everything is ready. Airport facilities are, above all, a redundant system. It is a world in which nothing remains, but in which nothing is missing. An example: the facility’s firefighters have two vehicles ready to circulate, in fact two self-extinguishing trucks, within a maximum of three minutes from the base, attached to the terminal. travelersat any point on the track or in the service buildings, and in the garages there is another heavy vehicle that is used only in case of breakdown, of extreme necessity.

What provides security is redundancy, abundance of resources. Another example: the facilities carry out a simulation of a general air accident every two years, according to their self-protection plan, but management schedules simulations of smaller accidents with much less frequency.

José David Vargas is responsible for the Airport Coordination Center (CECOA) of Cordobaa sort of control tower for everything that happens on site, from the most important to the seemingly most insignificant detail such as flight information for travelers on the screens located in the boarding lounge. “We are in charge of monitoring flight plans, providing resources to planes once they land, as well as managing the boarding lounge and the check-in counter,” explains the man in charge of a team of three professionals who work twelve-hour shifts.

Highly appreciated

With a very tight work schedule, because the activity at the Cordoba airport is what it is until now, there is no shortage of days that must be extended due to the needs of the service. There are times when an extension of the day is necessary because a flight scheduled by the airline requires it. National Transplantation Organization (NTO).

“The flight from Palma is approaching: it arrives in about half an hour,” says José David. It is time to allocate resources to the flight on the ground, to organize the recovery of the baggage. And how does this process work? “We do not usually communicate with the pilots, it is a function of the control tower: who we are in contact with is the airline of ‘handling‘that the company in question [en este caso Air Nostrum] hire to take care of it,” explains the head of the CECOAwhich has a direct, fast and fluid line with emergency and health services to report any risky situation.

These are not frequent cases but they do happen from time to time. That there is a scare. And usually it stays there, it doesn’t go any further. One of the recent episodes that the staff of this department of the airport facilities of Córdoba had to face was the departure of a trainee plane from the runway. “It left the runway on landing and entered a peripheral road: we immediately activated the self-protection plan and notified the firefighters, who went to the scene and checked that there were no injuries and that it was not difficult to redirect the plane. “I took the plane to where I had to go,” says Vargas, who did not have to call the health services.

Is there such a device in the Cordoba Airport? The answer is no, because officials did not consider it necessary given the size of the place and its proximity to the health centers of the capital, including the Reina Sofia University HospitalLogically, there is a clear protocol for immediately requesting care.

The plane from Palma is already visible despite a cloudy late August morning, with a dense, almost leaden sky. And two things happen. The operator of the flight information service (AFIS) —the control tower in colloquial jargon—has been in communication with the pilot for some time, giving him all the information he needs to land safely: from the state of the weather to the conditions of the runway. Giving him information, not guiding him to land. The difference is important.

He explains it Pablo Lazarothe head of the agency in charge of private enterprise Saerco. “Córdoba is in uncontrolled airspace: we respect the flight plan and give information to the pilot so that he can make decisions, we do not control the landing in the same way as it is done in other airports with more traffic”, such as Madrid, emphasizes Lázaro. The control tower is single-post, that is, one person per team, and the team in Córdoba is made up of four professionals.

For their part, the functions carried out by the contingent of firefighters of AENA The strengths of the Cordoba airport are varied and greater than in other larger facilities. One of those they assume is to signal to the pilots when the plane lands or begins the takeoff maneuver. This task, that of showing the exit route or the parking position to the device, is assigned to other teams in areas with higher air traffic.

Juan Jesus Fernandez is the leader of the crew. firefighters. “In each work team, we are four colleagues and a boss, and we are in permanent communication with the control tower and with the Airport Coordination Center (CECOA): any of them can activate our alarm and we leave,” he emphasizes. In addition, the aircraft is responsible for assisting Infoca’s planes, which fight forest fires from above, in refueling maneuvers.