Jordanian workshop discusses airport readiness for disasters

A workshop on readiness at the airport to deal with disasters opened on Sunday bringing into the spotlight Queen Alia International Airport's ability to respond to emergencies.
The workshop was organised by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the international courier services company, DHL, in collaboration with the Ministry of Interior, the Civil Aviation Authority and national partners.
The ministry's Public Safety and Environment director, Mohammed Smeiran, said the five-day workshop was aimed at raising the preparedness of the airport's staff to deal with emergencies and to provide them with the technical, administrative and logistical skills to handle luggage, goods and passengers in case of disaster.
Smeiran said the workshop is part of a series of training programs to qualify airport workers in the Kingdom, stressing the need for airport crews to be acquainted with international expertise in this field.
DHL director in Jordan, Mahmoud Haj Hussein, said the program was devised five years ago by his company in cooperation with the UNDP to equip airports prone to disasters to handle goods and passengers in times of emergency.
He added that the program had offered training to about 430 staff members at 25 airports around the world, voicing the hope that it will benefit the Kingdom's airports.
The UNDP director in Jordan, Majida al Assaf, stressed the importance of readiness and planning to mitigate the impact of airport disasters so as to ensure a speedy recovery after catastrophes, noting that the workshop's final report will be part of the national disaster risk reduction system.
The UNDP has focused on policies and developing institutional frameworks to enhance readiness and reduce disaster risk, and had worked with the DHL team since 2005 to deal with about 25 instances of catastrophe in order to guarantee the flow of relief aid in disaster-stricken areas.