Airport Safety

An effective Safety Management System (SMS), approved and controlled also by ENAC, is in place at the Milan airports. In this regard monthly meetings are held by the Safety Board (a Board within the airport manager) and at both airports Safety Committee meetings are held involving all operators, the airlines, and a range of interested parties concerning the various activities and institutional bodies present at the two airports.

Airport safety policy principles

The principles on which the Airport Safety policy of the SEA Group are based are as follows:

• to guarantee the design and constructive compliance, and its maintenance over time, regarding the flight infrastructure, plant and equipment with national and international standards in relation to efficiency and effective usage, ensuring the maintenance of the highest safety and service quality levels; 
• to ensure an ongoing review of operating processes and procedures to achieve the highest compliance possible with national and international regulations concerning safety, quality and operational efficiency/efficacy; 
• to introduce a systematic, recurring and sufficient training of all personnel, with a priority for those involved most in operating processes.

Intervention policies

The intervention policies focus upon the following aspects:

• the taking of responsibility for safety issues by all management and individual employees, at all levels of the various company activities; 
• a need to give priority ahead of all other issues to operating safety; 
• the greatest reduction possible of risks related to all land-side operations and in particular those related to aircraft; 
• the obligation to maintain safety standards for all operators, companies and external parties of any type within the airport sites; 
• maintenance and improvement of the safety level through periodic and systematic risk analysis, system traceability and auditing processes and the identification of specific safety objectives in relation to issues dealt with every month at the meetings of the Safety Board and of the Safety Committees; 
• ongoing education and communication so that all events which may affect safety are flagged and subsequently examined.

Wildlife Strike: prevention and monitoring

The prevention and monitoring of wildlife strikes is governed by the “Risk reduction plan from bird and wild animal impacts” and the relative Operational Procedure, both included in the airport manuals.

Particular attention is given to the manoeuvre area with the use of modern equipment acquired on the international market. In support of this activity, SEA utilises the company BCI (Bird Control Italy, the sector leader in the prevention of bird strikes and which carries out operations at the majority of Italian airports).

The preventative measures adopted concern the monitoring and the ongoing removal during daylight by biologists and bird experts within the Bird Control Unit. At both airports, a fixed removal system called “Space Control” is in place, in addition to a series of noise deterrent devices.

Safety Management System Indicators

To monitor the efficacy of the airport Safety Management system, SEA utilises a number of quantitative elements both at Linate and Malpensa which are reported as follows:

• the GSR (Ground Safety Reports); 
• the indicators of the principal events encountered at the SEA Group airports.

The Safety Management System is controlled and certified by ENAC and the ENAC supervision team also verified its substantial correctness.

The GSR in 2012 respectively numbered 407 for Malpensa and 300 for Linate; the indicators of the principal events encountered at the SEA Group airports did not present particular problems in relation to the maintenance of adequate levels of aeronautic safety.