LOCKING DOWN JETWAY ACCESS

Jan 1, 2005 12:00 PM, BY KATE HENRY

Charlotte Douglas International Airport, Charlotte, N.C., is a bustling air facility serving the prosperous greater Charlotte region and some 23 million passengers annually. Situated near the border of the Carolinas, the airport has an average of 500 daily departures to destinations around the world.

The airport serves commercial, cargo, corporate, private, military and trucking operations, is a hub for US Airways, and serves as host of other mainline and regional carriers.

En route to their plane, each passenger must pass through one of the nearly 100 jetway doors on the airport's five concourses, which are secured by solid locking technology that has served the airport well to date, notes Airport Locksmith Chris Picerno. But about three years ago, Picerno started to research a new access control solution for the jetway doors, one that would reduce time and expense spent on lock maintenance, that would enable locking control from one centralized control station and that would integrate the jetway door locks with the airport's existing access control network.

“We were searching for a lock that would integrate card access technology and interface with the airport's existing card access system,” Picerno says. “We wanted a system in which the locking devices could be programmed and controlled from one central location.” Also key to the search process, he adds, was finding a solution that could be easily retrofit into the lock technology already in place at the jetway doors, thus precluding the need for costly and time-intensive wiring and construction.

“We initially looked at standalone systems, but that's not the answer when you have as many users accessing the jetway doors every day as we do,” Picerno explains. “With the current standalone locks, we can be looking at two days to change out all the combinations in the airport when that is called for, so with the new system, we were also looking for something that delivered benefits in real-time.”

Up and running

Security and access control at Charlotte Douglas, like that of most airports in today's post-Sept. 11 climate, is tightly prescribed by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and controlled by the airport's own operations and information technology teams, which are, in instances, assisted by a number of external security contractors. Picerno explains that his “lockshop” team, for instance, ultimately reports to airport operations in terms of policy and procedure, and that the operations department ultimately handles on-site security system monitoring, as well. So when it came to implementing the beta test of the new locking technology, Picerno worked closely with security consultant Matt Smith of IR Security & Safety Consultants of the Carolinas and Marilyn Collins, product marketing manager for IR Security & Safety, as well as members of the airport's operations and IT teams, to ensure all involved parties were on board with the features and potential benefits of the new system.

Late last spring, Charlotte Douglas rolled out the new access technology, the Schlage Value Integration Platform (VIP) locks and Von Duprin VIP993 Exit Trim, to 12 jetway doors on one of the airport's smaller concourses, which presented an appropriate size for such a beta test, notes Picerno. The new devices incorporate Wiegand proximity card technology, monitoring switches and a locking mechanism by Schlage on one side of the jetway door and an exit device by Von Duprin on the other. Those features make this locking device particularly well suited to an airport application — the exit device side effectively shores up the safety of the jetway area in terms of accessibility and the locking mechanism ensures security in terms of the ability to lock it down on demand. “With the new devices,” Picerno says, “in the case of an emergency, an authorized airport employee in the jetway could always get into the airport, but no one can get to the tarmac, no one can get to the planes, unless they are authorized to be there.”

The other major benefit of the new locking devices has been the ease with which they have been integrated into the airport's existing Software House access control system, Picerno adds. “With other card reader systems we researched, there was usually a lot more wiring needed,” he says. “With the Von Duprin/Schlage product, we only had to run four wires to each doorway. With other systems, we would have had to run conduit all over the place, but this product has all the switches built in.”

Currently, the new devices are nearing the end of the beta test stage at the airport, and they have proven effective and trouble-free, Picerno says. “It initially took about three weeks to get them all installed and online,” he adds. “Although a lot of the wiring and programming work was accomplished during the day, the actual transitioning from the old mechanical locks to the new card reader-enabled locks had to be done when the airport was closed and the jetway doors were not in use. There were a few initial installation bugs, but once we worked through those, the installation went very smoothly,” he says.

The airport's access system, which is managed by the operations department, serves approximately 10,000 authorized users. A much smaller slice of those users are airport and airline employees who have access to the jetway doors. With the new locking devices in place, security has been able to determine, program and change the access privileges of those users and the locking status of the doors themselves in real-time and on demand.

The devices also enable the access system to perform a range of user monitoring functions, such as testing for and alerting to door-propped conditions and forced door openings. Such conditions can be viewed instantly by operations staff monitoring the Software House system who can then swiftly deploy a response, Picerno notes. A centralized, on-site control room monitors all alarm points at the airport, including the new devices.

“The best way I can gauge the success of this rollout is frankly by how little we have had to go down to the concourses to work on the locking devices,” Picerno says. “We have had virtually no call to do that, whereas with the combination locks previously in place, we typically received several calls a week.” He adds that the new devices also keep the busy airport current in terms of access control technology, and that going forward, standardizing on them to control all the jetway doors on Charlotte Douglas' concourses might be a viable solution.

FOR THE RECORD

About the Companies

For information, circle the Reader Service number (listed below) or visit securitysolutions.com

IR Security & Safety/Schlage	10
Software House	11
Von Duprin	12

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