Vancouver Airport Authority spending $1.3 million in wake of Polish man's death
Camille Bains, THE CANADIAN PRESS
Friday, December 7, 2007
RICHMOND, B.C. - The head of the Vancouver Airport Authority says that while the facility processes millions of passengers every year, it's lost some of the human touch that could have helped Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski after he arrived in the country he wanted to call home.
On Friday, Chief executive Larry Berg and airport authority officials announced several improvements they've made, mostly to the communications system that failed Dziekanski and his mother, who desperately searched for her son but was told he wasn't there.
Dziekanski died Oct. 14 after being shocked twice by an RCMP Taser but an autopsy did not reveal an obvious cause of death.
Berg told a news conference the authority will spend $1.3 million from this year's operating budget on improvements designed to make it easier for passengers coming through the international arrivals terminal to connect with those who are meeting them.
More than 17 million passengers, including four million from international destinations, come through the airport annually, Berg said.
But until now there have been no airport staff in the area controlled by the Canada Border Services Agency to help people such as Dziekanski.
"I think that we've lost a little bit of the human touch, the ability to reach out to people, individuals who may have different, unique circumstances, such as this individual did," said Berg.
The airport authority had no staff in the customs area to interact with Dziekanski, who wandered around for hours before becoming so agitated that he started tossing furniture.
A new customer-information counter has already opened in the customs hall and will provide a translation line, along with messaging services to the public greeting area and an electronic display advising those waiting that a passenger has arrived, Berg said.
A timeline provided by the authority of Dziekanski's movements at the airport shows he stepped off a connecting flight from Frankfurt at 3:20 p.m. on Oct. 13 and was shot by a police Taser early the next morning and died at 2:20 a.m.
That was after airport security and RCMP were called just before 1 a.m. with reports of someone "making trouble" and "throwing chairs" in the international arrivals area, airport operations vice-president Paul Levy said.
The airport operations centre dispatched security guards and called the RCMP.
An airport response co-ordinator and a shift supervisor also arrived at the scene, Levy said.
"The airport response co-ordinator recalls hearing the RCMP asking the passenger to calm down," he said. "He then observed the passenger back up towards the counter inside the passenger services area, reach into his jacket and pull out an object."
The two airport supervisors speculated the black object might be a knife, Levy said.
But seconds later, as Dziekanski received the first of two high-voltage Taser shocks and fell to the ground, the object that flew from his hand turned out to be a stapler, Levy said.
The timeline states that a customer service agent for the airport authority saw Dziekanski going down an escalator into the customs hall after everyone else on his flight had cleared a customs booth.
According to the timeline, Dziekanski stood face to face with the agent, who saw the man had "large beads of sweat pouring from the side of his face and temples" less than an hour after he arrived at the airport.
However, the agent did not call for help despite Dziekanski's unusual condition.
Levy would only say that training is being improved for all front-line staff and someone will be put in charge of the area.
Improvements at the airport will include five public safety officers trained in conflict resolution to intervene in a situation such as Dziekanski's, whose exchange with the RCMP was recorded on video by another traveller.
The video, which has sparked international outrage, shows Dziekanski was zapped with a Taser within seconds of police arriving on the scene, and he fell to the floor writhing in pain.
That was soon after his mother, Zofia Cisowski, and her Canadian husband left the airport after being told there wasn't any record of Dziekanski in the immigration area.
Airport improvements include better communication between the secure area controlled by the Canada Border Services Agency and the public area, enhanced translation services and 24-hour customer information service.
A so-called greeter board, a flat screen listing new arrivals' names, the city they've come from and the time their flight landed, began operating Friday, with more on the way.
The board's listings rotate in six languages - English, French, Korean, Japanese, Punjabi and Chinese.
Passengers who want their to names appear on the board must provide their information to airport authority staff.
Kevin Molloy, chief information officer at the airport authority, said that in the future international passengers may be able to stand before a video camera and have their image projected on to a screen in the public area.
Privacy concerns prevent the authority from getting a list of passengers' names from various airlines, although such information is provided to the Canada Border Services Agency, Molloy said.
The authority is exploring ways in which passengers could consent to provide their information to the airport authority when they book their trip for the benefit of family and friends at their final destination, he said.
"Privacy concerns have held the industry back from fully exploring that and I think now with the momentum we have with this incident we will continue to push that on a global basis," Molloy said.
The airport authority believes it's making industry-leading improvements.
"Of the changes that we see here today I'm unaware of them existing anywhere else in the world," said Molloy.
"Nowhere in the world do airport authorities have a presence within the customs area and now we've got an agreement with the Canada Border Services Agency to do that."
Berg said he's spoken to officials at the world's airport associations about the changes and CEOs of airports in other large Canadians cities, including Toronto, Montreal and Calgary.
Another changes involves setting up round-the-clock medical response in the terminal after concerns were raised it took too long to get emergency care for Dziekanski.
Several investigations have been launched into Dziekanski's death, including a full public inquiry by the B.C. government.
© The Canadian Press, 2007
sounds like some pretty darn good customer service.
Prev
Linear Mode
