London Luton Airport (LLA) has rounded off a bumper year for awards by winning the Best Safety Week Initiative category at the Airport Operators Association (AOA) Awards at a ceremony at London County Hall. The industry award celebrates the airport which introduced the best initiative during the association’s Airport Safety Week 2019. LLA’s initiative featured the use of a ‘Safety Bus’. Initially used just during Airport Safety Week each year, the bus is now a permanent fixture at the airport, and tours the aerodrome every fortnight, allowing all staff to learn about important safety procedures.
The award also recognised the creation of the Safety Stack following Airport Safety Week in 2017, which is a collective of 15 organisations based at the airport who collaborate on safety issues. This collaboration culminated in LLA becoming the first in the world to standardise ground handling procedures in line with IATA’s Ground Operations Manual and developing procedures to ensure best practice across all operators.
Earlier in the year, the airport was shortlisted for the UK/Irish Airport of the Year Award at the Travel Trade Gazette Awards and awarded a Readers’ Choice Award from Conde Nast, ranking it amongst the top five airports in the UK.
Individuals at the airport have been singled out for praise. This includes Michael Nagle, utilities manager for the airport who was awarded the Energy Champion of the Year award at the Energy Awards for his work in making the airport more energy efficient. This work was also Highly Commended by judges at the AOA Awards.
LLA’s General Counsel Swati Paul was named in The Lawyer magazine’s ‘Hot 100’ of UK legal professionals, while Dani Gargett, LLA’s Content and Communications Executive was named Best In-House Marketer and was Highly Commended in the Content Creator of the Year category in the 2019 Social Media Marketing Awards.
Commenting on the awards, CEO Alberto Martin said: “These awards are a fantastic demonstration of all the exemplary work by everyone across the airport throughout the year, and I’d like to thank them for their hard work. This is exactly the tone we want to set as we look to 2020, and I am confident that the airport’s successes will continue into the New Year.”
