Passengers are in safe hands at Prestwick

Passengers travelling from Prestwick Airport will know they are in safe hands this year.

Glasgow Prestwick Airport, working with multi-agency partners, simulated an emergency scenario to test their response plans last week.

With over 400 people taking part, the airport was able to confirm that their plans, policies and procedures all work in practice while demonstrating their effective joint emergency readiness.

The airport worked with Police Scotland, Scottish Fire & Rescue, Scottish Ambulance Service, British Red Cross, South Ayrshire Council, NHS Ayrshire & Arran, Border Force, Ryanair and Community Resilience Groups along with a number of other agencies.

Jules Matteoni, operations director, said: ‘Last night’s exercise is an important part of the work we do as an airport to ensure that we keep our staff, customers and the public safe.

‘This exercise successfully demonstrated that our joint agency plans work. The strong relationships and the close partnership working arrangements we have with airline customers, local authorities and emergency services really came into play through the way we all worked effectively as joint up and co-ordinated team.

Ryanair flies from Glasgow Prestwick Airport

‘We sincerely hope that we do not need to enact our emergency plans. However, these exercises help us test our plans to ensure that they are effective in the unfortunate event that we need to put them into action for real.

‘We would like to thank all our partners for their readiness to take part and for making it a successful test of our joint plans. We appreciate the expert support we can call upon from these valuable relationships and we look forward to continuing to work closely together.’

Exercises are carried out routinely by the airport, emergency response partners and local organisations to ensure that appropriate multi-agency response mechanisms are in place.

The airport is required to run a number of emergency exercises throughout the year as part of its Airport Operator’s license obligations.

The day-to-day running of the airport and its customers were not be affected by the exercise as the Airport remained open and operational throughout.

Glasgow Prestwick Airport staff take part in the emergency exercise