Addressing significant weather impacts on airports: quick start guide and toolkit

This document provides a toolkit that raises airport operator awareness about vulnerabilities caused by significant weather events. The toolkit helps airports develop more robust contingency and recovery plans, in addition to their airport emergency plans.

This toolkit focuses on events that are “rare but plausible”; that is, events that may have happened in the distant past, or in adjacent geographic areas, but are not common event types at the airport itself, and therefore may not be in the forefront of the airport managers’ minds. 

Development of the toolkit, Airport Weather Advanced REadiness (AWARE), is based on a review of the historical weather data and impacts, as well as best practices and lessons learned from airports’ responses to recent significant weather events. This toolkit will assist airports of various types and sizes and their stakeholders in effectively planning for, responding to, and recovering from significant weather events.