Movements

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e Air Coupling Bridge What does APOE Wg consist of? Gateway House Gateway House is the largest Air Transit Centre in Defence and caters for and accommodates over 60,000 passengers a year. In-Flight Catering In-Flt Catering is responsible for all passenger and crew feeding requirements on the ground and in the air. Currently In-Flt are working at 160 per cent of its normal output which has significantly increased due to requirement to ration Op HERRICK and TELIC Flts for up to 7 legs instead of normal 3. Fuels and Lubricants Flight The largest Fuels Flight in the RAF, F&L issues between 1/ 2- 3/ 4 million litres of fuel a day. It takes about 80-100 tones of fuel to fill a TriStar or VC10 so, in the course of a year, RAF Brize Norton uses over 300 million litres of fuel. Aviation fuel is stored in 3 Bulk Fuel Installations that hold around 28 million litres of fuel. Air Support Mechanical Transport (ASMT) A wide range of vehicles are operated by ASMT including fuel bowsers, toilet trucks, high-loaders, cranes, airfield sweepers, forklifts and tractors. ASMT also delivers all domestic water to aircraft and provides an RAF-wide training facility. Brize Transport Brize Transport operates over 370 vehicles and covers over 3 million miles per year. Tasks are hugely varied but regular work involves transport of passengers between Gateway House and the Air Terminal as well as their on-move to Oxford Railway Station and Heathrow Airport. Brize Transport also delivers freight to Heathrow Airport. Air Movements Squadron Air Movements is the biggest Squadron within the Wing and, as you all know, is responsible for processing passengers and cargo arriving and departing to and from Brize Norton. This makes it a major ‘shop window’ of the Station, the Movements Trade and indeed the RAF. The 290 strong Squadron processes around 250,000 passengers a year and loads over 24,000 tons of freight per annum with it’s main effort supporting the vast Movements
majority of military movements in and out of both Op TELIC and Op HERRICK Theatres. With the additional pressures put on an already ageing fleet, a lot more charter aircraft are being utilised in addition to VC10, TriStar and C17 aircraft. Examples of charter aircraft are Omni Air DC10s and Excel Airways Boeing 767s which operate to Al-Udeid, mainly for Op TELIC R&R and sustainment and are increasingly used for Op HERRICK. Air Atlanta provides the South Atlantic Airbridge operating a Boeing 747 every 5 days to Ascension Island and Mount Pleasant. In addition a number of freight tasks are offered to companies operating DC8, Airbus A310 and AN-124 aircraft tasked directly to Basra and Kabul. Particular peaks of effort were experienced during the Pakistan Earthquake, Hurricane Katrina, Op HIGHBROW and, the now infamous, Op BOLTHOLE. Nevertheless, as throughout the whole movements organisation, the regular op tempo has risen considerably particularly during RiP periods. Despite the intensity of operations there have been some noticeable achievements. On the Cargo side, the provision of a dedicated Consignment Tracking team has been a major success and we now achieve approximately 98% successful tracking out of Brize Norton. However, it is the APOE’s ability to handle passengers that, rightly, generates the most interest and is, dare I suggest, the most noticeable aspect of what the Trade does. Working with an aged Air Transport fleet does not help the situation and a unit establishment based around the handling of 2 simultaneous movements presents a few moments of panic when greeted with 4 aircraft on the ground split across the ‘Waterfront’ and ‘Southside’. Despite this, we are currently achieving a 97% satisfaction rate according to PRO reports. Of course, while we will do all we can to constantly improve the service to passengers, the Air Terminal is an operational military organisation and it is not particularly efficient or effective to provide BA Business Class standard. Nevertheless, it is vital that passengers are processed as well as possible and we are constantly striving to do better across the Station. A notabl example is the purchase of Flight Information Display Screens (FIDS) for the Air Terminal and Gateway House which is well advanced and the aspiration is to link flight information to the RAF Brize Norton website to enable passengers and their families to check flight information before leaving home. In addition, reduced passenger reporting times have been published for the JAMC to deliver passengers and baggage to the Air Terminal as close as possible to ETD. This includes the provision for direct reporting of formed units to the APOE as appropriate to reduce transit times. In addition, greater ATLO availability in the Air Terminal has resulted in speedier resolution of booking and on-move issues. Hopefully, this has provided an update on what has been happening at Brize Norton recently and what life is like at the ‘forward edge of the Air Coupling Bridge’. Last year nearly 3000 aircraft movements were handled at Brize Norton with 43000 pax handled during the Op HERRICK Expansion alone. Never a dull day! Movements
Page 1 and 2: Movements
Page 3 and 4: ForewordGroup Captain R Atherton MA
Page 5: Life at the edge of the APOE Wing R
Page 9 and 10: 07 Oct 05 747 Steps struck front on
Page 11 and 12: JATEU Airportability Section, RAF B
Page 13 and 14: ‘OK Boss’ I replied. ‘When do
Page 15 and 16: MAMS Detachment Flt Lt Matt Stott A
Page 17 and 18: of the two transit tents on the air
Page 19 and 20: from the ‘Eye of the Storm’ abo
Page 21 and 22: However, it’s not all doom and gl
Page 23 and 24: An example of some well built palle
Page 25 and 26: The Trade Sponsor is in a hole! So
Page 27: Training update - some thoughts on

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