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Managing Airport-Community Relations

Desmond M. Connor

As an airport executive, managing airport-community relations can be one of your greatest challenges.The two airport communities - inside and outside the perimeter fence - are complex; many of their components are not under your direct line command, but must be managed through leadership, persuasion and the selective use of relevant information.

Positive community relations can do a great deal for the airport and its partners, just as negative results can delay plans and impair performance at many levels. The proposed Pickering airport, east of Toronto, was never built because of community opposition; Vancouver's new third runway was delayed for years for the same reason.

To provide a factual foundation, I have carried out a brief survey of eight Transport Canada communications directors and the presidents of ten Airport Authorities across Canada. Each were asked to identify up to five current community relations challenges/opportunities; responses were obtained at short notice from nine of the 18, from Vancouver to Halifax.

Current Community Relations Issues
The principal community relations issues are:

1. Economic - user pay, Airport Improvement Fee, GA landing fees, added costs of policing and security, wise investment of expansion funds, boosting community economic development and tourism, affordable ground transportation, paying rent on facilities already seen as paid for, historical capital underfunding and the financial viability of the airport.

2. Jurisdictional - transfer of airport to local community, public accountability, municipal encroachment on airport lands, native land claims, defining the role of the airport, mayors and business leaders are more demanding and the "Open Skies" policy needs expansion.

3. Environmental - noise, 24 hour operation for couriers, night construction noise, Environmental Assessment Review, wildlife and water and air quality concerns.

4. Communication - with staff, nominators/supporters and the general community; developing a local support group and citizens committee; the need for more partnerships and sponsorships.

5. Planning - airport expansion, Airport Master Plan and revision of Land Use Plan.

Other issues raised include: the public expects improvements in service levels, yet airlines are cutting costs; how to balance economic development with community quality of life; aviation safety; multimodal connections; advances in technical communications, like the Internet.

How best to deal with this multitude of community relations issues?

A Strategy to Improve Airport - Community Relations Before dealing with specific issues, we need to establish a framework to improve airport-community relations. Here are some elements for an overall strategy.

A. Prepare Social Profiles of Your Airport Communities
To manage a complex situation effectively, there is no substitute for a good data base. The social profile (see Appendix for an outline) provides a comprehensive and systematic summary of the key characteristics of the people of a community. As you review the specific points in the attached outline, you will probably know about 90% of them when you think about your internal and external communities - but it's the 10% you don't know which results in nasty surprises! For example:

• What are the dozen different publics for your airport? (A public is any set of people with a shared point of view on an issue. e.g. your own staff, each airline's staff, passengers, cargo shippers, concessionaires, maintenance people, security staff, ground transportation people, unions etc. Then, outside the fence, there are: municipalities, community associations, environmental groups, business organizations, relevant provincial/state agencies etc.

• What do each of these know, believe and suspect about airport operations and management?

• How much of this is valid information, and how much is myth, misinformation or rumour in each case? (The latter is the raw material to be addressed by a communications program.)

The critical question is - can you expect to manage the airport efficiently and effectively when this number of your partners have this level of misinformation and distrust?

In 1979, when the Canadian Air Transportation Administration "Policy for Public Consultation" (TP 1567) was finally promulgated, provision was made for social profiles to be prepared for each airport community across the country and updated annually.

In 1980, the general manager at Toronto International Airport (now Pearson) was concerned initially that a public consultation program about airport expansion would lead to overwhelming opposition from anti-noise groups. Social profiles of the adjacent municipalities revealed that many residents had airport-related jobs and viewed expansion positively; subsequent publications and open houses generated widespread support, showing that the anti-noise people were a small minority.

In 1985, public opinion surveys of the Greater Vancouver area showed generally positive attitudes to the airport but social profiles in the nearby municipalities identified community associations with some concerns about their experiences with the planning process for several recent projects, including the third runway. A social profile of the on-site community, some 10,000 people, indicated a number of opportunities for improvements in communications on airport-related subjects and in attitudes to the airport and its management.

B. Review your management system
Community relations is partly a function of a well-managed administration. Many of the community relations challenges identified in my recent cross-Canada survey noted above are really management issues. If there is some major flaw in an airport's management system, no amount of news conferences and glossy publications will create positive community relations. Therefore it is worthwhile to review how your organization is:

• Achieving its objectives - which means they must be defined, communicated and monitored;

• Adapting to its environment - responding to changes in your external environment e.g. new municipal leaders, and changes internally e.g. new manager of human resources;

• Patterning its work flow - frequent events need standard operating procedures so your crisis coping capacity is reserved for the unexpected;

• Managing its tensions - it's normal for them to build up as work is done so some kind of radiator is needed to diffuse them;

• Develop and maintain esprit de corps - celebrate success, reward performance and find ways for the participants to feel good about the organization.

If you carry out this review of your management system every 3 - 6 months, you will find it much easier and more satisfying to manage, as well as more efficient and effective. Remember, your organization is the star in the airport system - if your people work well together and feel good about themselves, this will rub off on their relations with your partner organizations, helping to generate good community relations. On the other hand, if your staff are caught up in conflict and feel negative much of the time, that will rub off too.

C. Develop and implement a sound communications plan
Here are some of the key elements:

1. Review the dozen different publics you identified through the social profile and set your priorities - which are both urgent and important to deal with first?

2. For each public, what is the best way to reach them - do they have an organization or a publication you can work through? If so, how best to do this?

3. Develop a responsive publication which speaks to the particular information gaps and myths which pervade that public. Use a question-and-answer format - it gets read and absorbed far more by a skeptical audience than a traditional style. Include a reply coupon and/or set up a telephone with an answering machine as a hotline - it suits shift workers, enables you to log the issues and make a more thorough response. (See the Appendix for more about this and other techniques noted below.)

4. This first targeted publication can be revised for other key publics as required. Later, you may find that some kind of tabloid newspaper, perhaps quarterly, is useful.

5. After any publication, some 10% of the readers will want to talk with you or one of your staff - an open house a week after publication, advertised in it, will satisfy this need. Open houses provide a much more positive environment than a traditional public meeting, and enable people to visit when they wish, and for as long as they wish, compared with the set format of the public meeting.

6. Since computers are widely used at airports, consider setting up an Intranet with readily accessible web pages, so all can easily obtain current information on aircraft and passenger volumes, changing weather etc. When given relevant and reliable data, most people will manage themselves more appropriately.e.g. the improved performance when on-time aircraft departures are posted.

7. Cultivate some informal observation posts throughout the airport so thoughtful people can call you, or one of your staff, when they see or hear something they think you would probably like to know.

8. Review your media situation - what are the principal vehicles, what kind of treatment have they been providing on the airport? If less than satisfactory, is the problem at the reporter, editor/news director or publisher/owner level and how best deal with it? Sometimes a negative pattern was established years ago and has never been challenged. Create some media opportunities on a regular basis. Cultivate the relevant beat reporter and make sure he/she has an after-hours telephone number to call when on a breaking story. Remember you can often get an hour on local cable for almost nothing - a small display newspaper advertisement and a few 30 second radio spots will boost the usually small audience.

9. The selection, care and feeding of advisory committees is a fine art. Such groups have a tendency to become supervisory unless firmly managed. In many cases, one or more one-day planning workshops can be a more efficient use of everyone's time.

10. For airport expansion, the revision of master plans and environmental reviews, a special program of public consultation will be required, synchronized with the milestone points of the planning process. After updating the social profile for the particular proposal, a generic design consists of a series of responsive publications, open houses and planning workshops.

A Few Practical Lessons Learned
During the last 25 years and over 300 projects, the following lessons have emerged:

1. Understanding your community is the essential foundation for effective public consultation.

2. The level and quality of participation with the public will be no better than that of the staff within your organization. Participative managers believe that none of us is as smart as all of us.

3. Spend no more than 20% of your resources trying to directly change the minds of the committed opponents of a valid proposal. Instead, direct your efforts to interest, inform, and involve the usually silent majority and later encourage them to deal with those who oppose the proposal.

4. The media is a dubious ally with its own agenda - often, to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. If you want something said clearly and well,buy the time or space, and say it yourself.

5. Consensus is a noble ideal, but be prepared to settle for informed, visible, majority public acceptance. (Consensus has a very specific definition - don't use the term loosely.)

6. "Public" is a plural noun - beware of any statement which uses it in the singular. It is probably true of some of the people, but not all.

7. A proponent usually has more support than the media coverage would have one think.

8. In designing a public consultation program, one secret of success is to ensure that "everyone wins something", even if it is just recognition.

9. Regular evaluation is the best way to learn from both your successes and failures.

10. If involved in an Environmental Impact Assessment, see that one component is a participative Social Impact Assessment and Management program.

Reference
Connor, Desmond M., Constructive Citizen Participation: A Resource Book, (Fifth Edition), Development Press, Victoria, B.C.; 220 pp.; l994. (Available for free 10-day review.)

"How to Prevent and Resolve Public Controversy", 25-minute instructional video with video guide; Connor Development Services Ltd., 5096 Catalina Tce.,Victoria, B.C., V8Y 2A5.

Acknowledgements
Desmond M. Connor is a consulting sociologist (Ph.D., Cornell, 1963) and president of Connor Development Services Ltd. which specializes in preventing and resolving public controversy about new policies, programs and projects for corporations and government agencies. He assisted Transport Canada to develop a national policy for public consultation in airport planning and management in the late `70s and has worked on eight projects related to airport expansion in Toronto, Hamilton and Vancouver and ground transportation and GA aircraft in Calgary. Tel. 250-658-1323; fax 250-658-8110; email connor@connor.bc.ca ; website www.connor.bc.ca/~connor

This paper was prepared for "Managing Airports in the 1990s", a joint Canadian/United States airport management workshop sponsored by the American Association of Airport Executives in Vancouver, B.C., November 10-12, 1996.

Appendix

1. Social Profile Outline
   
   1. Local History
      
      • identify early settlement, key events and past leaders.
        
      • what are the trends in land use? Note population trends, e.g. age-sex distribution; migration; ethnic origin; occupations; education (see Census or planning studies).
        
      • how does the history of the community help to explain its present position and character?

   2. Industries & Occupations
      
      • what are the main employers, markets, skills?
        
      • how do these affect the community's behaviour?

   3. Development Issues
      
      • what issues arose in past 5 years; who got involved; what happened; how was each issue resolved?
        
      • what are current issues and what, if anything is being done about them, e.g. planning studies, etc.?
        
      • identify attitudes to growth.
        
      • what are the implications of the above for the agency and/or project?

   4. Organizations & Leadership
      
      • list the principal groups, their activities and officers, their roles in the community, etc.
        
      • identify and give a brief description of community leaders and influentials, e.g. who have followers and are respected for their opinions
        
      • what does this imply for the proponent and its plans?

   5. Communication Channels
      
      • outline the formal media, e.g. geographic coverage, capacity and credibility of each; circulation/audience of each.
        
      • describe the informal networks - key nodes on grapevines; strategic listening posts in the community.
        
      • what relevance have these channels for the agency and/or project?

   6. Knowledge of and Attitudes to Industry/Client/Project
      
      • what valid information, myths and areas of ignorance are evident in key people and groups?
        
      • how does the above affect information and education requirements for the proposed activities?

   7. Publics Affected
      
      • summarize the key characteristics of each public, e.g. language; education; media and grapevines appropriate; organizations and leaders relevant, etc.
        
      • what implications has this for the formation of a Citizen's Advisory Committee and other techniques?

   8. Observations & Conclusions
      
      • provide a succinct outline of how the characteristics of this community appear to affect the agency and/or project and their implications for a public participation program if required.

   Methodology - the social profile is usually prepared by a social researcher, typically with a master's in applied sociology or anthropology, over a 10 day period - a day to review written materials; five days to interview 12 - 15 people with relevant points of view as leaders of key organizations; four days to prepare a 25-30 page report.

2. Responsive Publication
   This consists of short, simple, direct and clear information which recognizes the negative as well as the positive aspects of a proposaland includes an easy means of response, e.g. a reply-paid postcard, tear-off coupon, or hotline telephone number. Publications may be brochures distributed by householder or internal mail or display advertisements placed in local newspapers.

3. Open Houses
   This is a positive opportunity for people associated with the proposal to converse with interested employees and residents of the area it affects, usually between 2:00 and 9:00 p.m. in a library or hall. Visitors review graphic panels describing the proposal, talk with staff and are asked to register their views about the issue before leaving. The results are usually a considerable improvement on the traditional public meeting, which in many cases, is the last of the blood sports and, like the others, should be outlawed!

4. Planning Workshop
   This technique enables people with a variety of views on an issue to work together to resolve it. Typically, a mix of representatives from the proponent, broadly based citizen groups, special interest organizations and perhaps relevant government agencies meet together for a day to review a proposed project, its community effects, local concerns, alternative ways of resolving them, decision criteria, etc. The leadership of the workshop require credibility with all the participants, insights into personal and group dynamics and a substantial understanding of the proposal.

5. Reference Centre
   People with professional training can access technical reports when these are made available to the public on the reference shelf of the local library or at a room in the proponent's office.

6. Informal Consultation
   While the foregoing formal techniques are important, keeping in touch with key people and sharing ideas with them informally can prevent unfortunate surprises when milestones are reached.

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