Running an Airport Security Shift

Readiness note. This is a private training programme. It builds knowledge and readiness. It does not grant any official certificate, licence, or government recognition, and it does not create any affiliation with a regulator or an agency. On passing, learners receive a Record of Completion.

What this course is not. This is a knowledge course. It is not AVSEC training, not screener training and not an airport pass course. Your airport, your employer and the aviation security authority decide what training you must hold. It is also not the supervisor, instructor or auditor certification that an aviation security authority gives.

This module builds on module S1 (Leading a Shift) and on the units of Guard — Air, mainly unit A1 (Why Aviation Security Is Different) and unit A16 (Reporting at an Airport).

Mission briefing

It is 04:40 at Lakeside Airport. You lead twelve guards on the morning shift. Three flights are late. A fence repair starts at 07:00 near the cargo road. One guard has called in sick. The night supervisor is waiting to hand over.

On a Land site you answered to one client. Here you answer to several bodies at once, and the day follows the flights.

Focus: an airport shift goes well when you know who directs what, you brief each post on today's facts, and every post stays filled by a person who is allowed to be there.

Learning objectives

By the end of this module, you will be able to:

• Say who directs your team's security work, and who handles its administration.
• Collect the facts you need before an airport shift.
• Run a start-of-shift briefing that fits an airport.
• Post, rotate and relieve guards so that no post is empty and no guard is on a post they are not cleared for.
• Keep guards alert on quiet posts.
• Work with the airport's security control room, airline duty managers and the government security force.

1. What is different about an airport shift

Module S1 (Leading a Shift) taught you to plan, brief, post and hand over. All of it still applies. An airport adds five things.

• The plan is not yours. The airport has a security plan approved by the aviation security authority. Your posts are a small part of it. You do not change a post, a check or a route on your own.
• More than one body gives direction. The airport operator, the government security force, airlines and your own agency each have a part. Section 2 sorts them.
• The flights set the pace. A delay, a diverted flight or bad weather changes your shift within minutes.
• People must be cleared for the post. A guard needs the right pass, the right training and, for airside posts, the airside safety induction. A willing guard without these cannot fill the post.
• Information is protected. Post lists, duty lists and briefing sheets are security information. They do not leave the briefing room.

2. Know who directs what

A guard with three bosses gets confused (module S1, Leading a Shift). At an airport the risk is higher, because many people in uniform may speak to your guard. Sort it before the shift.

The exact split differs by country and airport. Where your edition has a country note, it gives an example. Ask your manager for the written split at your airport, and keep it with your shift file.

One rule for your guards: a guard follows the post orders and the officer who directs that post. Any other request goes through you.

A contact sheet you can reuse. Keep one page, checked at every handover:

• The control room: channel, phone, call sign.
• Duty officer of the government security force: name, phone.
• Airport duty manager: name, phone.
• Airline duty managers for today's flights: phone.
• Airside operations: channel or phone.
• Your manager and the stand-by supervisor: phone.
• Emergency number, and the airport's own emergency number.

The sheet is security information. Keep it on you, not on a wall.

3. Before the shift: collect the facts

You need more facts than on a Land site.

1. Handover from the last supervisor. Open issues, faults, passes handed in, guards who need support.
2. Alert state. The authority sets how strict the checks are today. You are told what changes on your posts, not the reason.
3. The flight picture. Busy hours, late flights, diverted flights, a full terminal. You do not need flight details. You need to know when your posts will be under pressure.
4. Special movements. A VIP, a medical flight, an escorted person. You are told only your part: which post, what time, what to do.
5. Works in progress. Building work, a fence repair, a gate that is closed, a door that is out of use. Unit A4 (Staff Gates and Vehicle Gates into Restricted Areas) covered building work at a gate.
6. Faults. A card reader, a light, a camera, a barrier. Who reported it, and what temporary measure is in place.
7. Weather. Heat, rain, fog, strong wind. Low visibility changes airside rules (unit A6, Airside Safety: Aprons, Aircraft and FOD).
8. Your people. Who is present, who is new, whose pass or training ends soon (module AS2, Access Points, Pass Control and Audits).

Write these on one sheet.

4. The airport briefing

Use the briefing order from module S1 (Leading a Shift). Add the airport items. Keep it to ten minutes, standing, in the language your guards know best.

Briefing sheet (your own form):

1. Attendance and fitness. Is each guard fit for duty (unit 2B, Fit for Duty and Working Alone)?
2. Pass check. Each guard shows their pass. Is it valid today, and for the area of their post?
3. Posts. Each guard hears their post and who they report to on it.
4. Alert state. What changes on each post today.
5. Pressure hours. When the queues and the vehicles will come.
6. Works and faults. Where, and what the guard does about them.
7. Safety. Weather, airside rules for today, water and rest.
8. Reporting. The control room channel, a radio check, and one reminder of what must be reported (unit A16, Reporting at an Airport).
9. Questions back. Ask two guards a real case. "Meena, a contractor at the cargo road gate says his pass is in the van. What do you do?"

Tell each guard what they need for their post, and no more. A guard at the staff gate does not need the time of a VIP movement on the far side. This is called need to know. It protects the guard too: nobody can force a person to give facts that the person does not know.

Guards do not photograph the sheet or the duty list. Collect the paper after the briefing.

5. Posting: the right person on the right post

Before you put a name on a post, check four things.

• Pass. Is the guard's pass valid for that area, today?
• Training. Has the guard done the training that the authority and the airport require for that post?
• Safety. For an airside post: the airside safety induction, a bright vest, ear protection. For a post that needs driving: the airside driving permit.
• Experience. A guard who is new to the airport works beside a steady guard first.

If one of the four is missing, the guard does not take that post. Move a cleared guard there and give the other guard a post they are cleared for. If you cannot fill a post with a cleared guard, tell the control room and your manager at once. Do not fill it quietly with the wrong person, and do not leave it empty and hope. The officer who directs the post decides what happens next.

Write in the shift log who was on each post, and from when to when. After an incident, someone will ask.

6. Rotation and relief

Watching the same thing for a long time is hard for every person. Attention drops, even in good guards (unit A13, Insider Threat, Staying Alert and Security Culture). You cannot fix this with a warning. You fix it with the plan.

• Rotate by task. Move a guard between a watching task and a moving task: from an exit lane to a patrol, from a screen to a gate. Follow the limits in your post orders. Where the orders set none, ask your manager to agree them with the client.
• Plan the relief before the shift. Write who relieves whom and when. Meals, prayer and toilet breaks are in the plan, not found during the shift.
• Relieve at the post. The new guard arrives. The two guards hand over at the post (unit 2A, Your Post: Orders, Handover and the Logbook). Only then does the first guard leave. A post is never left empty "for two minutes".
• Hand over the state of the post. At a gate: what is open, what is waiting, any person or vehicle that has been stopped at the gate. At an aircraft guard post: who may come near, and what the guard was told to watch (unit A12, Guarding Aircraft and the Airport Perimeter). The new guard repeats it back.
• Check that the relief guard is cleared for that post, in the same four ways as section 5.

Keep the rotation plan off public view. Visit posts at different times (module S1, Leading a Shift).

7. Keeping quiet posts alert

Many airport posts are quiet for hours: a locked gate, a remote stand, a door that few people use. Quiet posts are where checks slip.

• Visit with a purpose. Ask one question about the post. "Who may open this gate? Who do you call if the reader fails?"
• Give the post a reason. Tell the guard why the door matters. A guard who knows the reason keeps the rule when no one is watching (unit A1, Why Aviation Security Is Different).
• Stay in contact. A short radio check at times that change. A guard who hears nothing for four hours feels forgotten.
• Look after the body. Water, shade, a seat where the orders allow it, ear protection near aircraft.
• Act on what guards tell you. If a guard reports a fault three times and nothing changes, the guard stops reporting.

Checks and tests of posts are in module AS2 (Access Points, Pass Control and Audits). How to give feedback after a test is in module AS5 (Leading Security Culture on Your Team).

8. Liaison during the shift

With the control room. Use one channel. Give your call sign, the place, the facts, what you need. Log the time and the name of the person you spoke to.

With the government security force. Its officers direct the security work. If an officer gives your guard an instruction at the post, the guard follows it, unless it is unsafe or against the law, and tells you. If you think an instruction clashes with the post orders, do not argue at the post. Raise it with the duty officer, away from the public. Then tell your manager and log it.

With airline duty managers. An airline may ask for a guard at a gate or beside an aircraft. Send the request through the control room or the contract manager. Do not move a guard off a post because an airline employee asked at the post.

When two instructions clash, teach your guards this order:

1. Keep people safe.
2. Follow the post orders and the officer who directs the post.
3. Ask the other person, politely, to wait.
4. Call you. You call the control room.

Write down who asked for what, and what was decided.

9. When the day changes

A late flight moves the pressure hours. A higher alert state adds checks. A work site runs late.

When something changes:

• Find out which posts it touches.
• Tell those posts, by radio or in person: what changed, what you do now, until when.
• Ask the guard to repeat it back.
• Log the time and who was told.
• Tell the next supervisor at handover.

If a change needs more guards than you have, tell the control room and your manager early. Module AM1 (The Aviation Security Regime and the Guarding Contract) covers how managers plan extra numbers for such days.

10. Shift log and handover

Keep the shift log as module S1 (Leading a Shift) taught. At an airport, add:

• The alert state, and each change with its time.
• Who was on each post, with times.
• Each instruction from the control room or the duty officer: time, name, what was said.
• Passes found, handed in or reported lost.
• Faults reported, and the fault number if the airport gives one.

Hand over face to face. Walk through the log, the contact sheet and the open issues. Count the radios, keys and registers with the other supervisor. Both of you sign.

What you do / What you never do

Worked example

The people, aircraft and places in this example are invented.

Supervisor Farah takes the morning shift at Lakeside Airport. At handover she learns three things: one guard is sick, a fence repair starts at 07:00 by the cargo road, and three flights are late.

Her spare guard, Jomo, joined last week. His pass does not cover airside. The empty post is an airside gate. Farah does not send Jomo there. She moves Rekha, who is cleared, from a landside door to the airside gate, and puts Jomo on the landside door beside a steady guard. She calls the control room: "Supervisor Two. All posts filled. One change: Rekha at Gate Four." She logs it.

At the briefing she tells only the cargo road post about the fence repair, and asks that guard: "A worker walks from the repair site to your gate with no pass in view. What do you do?"

At 08:10 an airline employee asks the guard at a boarding gate to come and stand by an aircraft. The guard says, "I cannot leave this post. I will call my supervisor." Farah sends the request to the control room. The duty officer decides.

Farah filled each post with a cleared guard, briefed by need to know, and kept requests in the right channel.

Activity — plan your shift

Use your own airport, or the one in the Mission briefing.

1. Write the split for your team: who directs security work, who handles the contract, who you call first.
2. Fill in the contact sheet from section 2. Which line could you not fill in today?
3. One guard is sick and your only spare guard is not cleared for the empty post. Write your next three actions.
4. Write the three things you would tell the guard at a quiet remote gate, and one question you would ask back.

There is no single right answer. Check that every post has a cleared guard, that each guard knows who directs their post, and that the control room and your manager hear about gaps early.

Key points

• The airport's plan sets your posts. You do not change them on your own.
• Know who directs security work, who handles the contract, and how to reach each one.
• Collect today's facts before the shift: alert state, pressure hours, special movements, works, faults, weather, people.
• Brief each post by need to know. Ask a question back.
• A guard takes a post only with the right pass, training and safety induction.
• Relieve at the post, with a handover. No post is left empty.
• Rotate tasks and keep contact, so that quiet posts stay alert.
• Requests from airlines and others go through the control room. Log every instruction.

Where to go next

• Module S1 (Leading a Shift): the base for this module. Module S4 (Rosters, Fatigue and Welfare) covers hours and rest.
• Unit A16 (Reporting at an Airport): what your guards report.
• Module AS2 (Access Points, Pass Control and Audits): checks of gates, passes and records.
• Module AS5 (Leading Security Culture on Your Team): feedback and reports about colleagues.

Conclusion

You have completed this module. You can now sort who directs what, brief an airport shift, post and relieve cleared guards, keep quiet posts alert, and keep requests in the right channel.

The next module is AS2 (Access Points, Pass Control and Audits).

Complete the Learning Check for this module before you move on.