What professional journals and organizations should i be aware of as an aviation operation specialist

Hi Deja!

Are you interested in Operations of a particular airline, or overall Management of the Airport? I don't know a lot about airlines aviation ops. Airport Ops as concerns mgt of the airport is interesting. The airport ops people I knew had military backgrounds. It does not necessarily mean it is required. Some also had training from Embry Riddle. They were working towards certification by the AAAE.

I don't know a lot about journals and organizations, other than that mentioned above. I think both would have a wealth of information on their websites.

I encourage you to call San Antonio Airport Ops and see if you can go out on a runway inspection. It's pretty cool. They have to look for little things on the runway that could get sucked into an engine, make sure all the edge lights are operational, check braking action if it rains/snows, etc. , and, communicate with air traffic control on the radio! The number for San Antonio should be 210.207.3476. I don't know their shifts, but, Saturday late night tends to be the slowest. I would call during the week and try to set it up.

Other things Ops does is respond to aircraft emergencies, injured persons in the terminals, etc. They are the representative of airport management, and the city of San Antonio, when management is not there.

As a side note: I was an airport police officer. We used to have conflict with Operations over who was "in charge" when something happened. I got along well with most of them, but one let that "representative of management" thing go to his head. He was about to walk into a crime scene. I told him he couldn't, and if he did, he'd go to jail. Fun times!