On Location at McCarran International Airport: Sneak Peek

Fortunately, I made it--the plane was late. Then I found out that "Alert Condition Orange" had been declared that day. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) was on high alert, and folks who were listening were supposed to expect serious security checkpoint delays. Clearly, there was no way IT could have cut down that line delay.

IT at McCarran is great. It's very business-centric and very customer-oriented. The airport has a centralized flight information display (FID) system, which shows arrival and departure times for all airlines in the airport. It also has a common use terminal emulation (CUTE) system that allows the IT staff to reconfigure gates and check-in counters pretty painlessly, no matter which airline needs them. This allows airlines to spread out when the lines get long.

In general, McCarran has one of the most excited--and dedicated--IT groups that I've seen in a while. Mental Note: Tell Senior Network Analyst Gerard Hughes or FIDS Systems Manager Dave Bourgon (the folks responsible for FIDs) that it might be a good idea to display the Alert Condition and its consequences. As an example, for Alert Condition Orange, FIDs throughout the airport could read: Serious delays at the security checkpoints, so hurry up and don't stop for that extra double latte!"

And that's just it: These guys have a flexible enough system that they can easily post such a warning. And I bet they will next time. As they pointed out during our conversations, they have no control over the TSA, but they do have control over all the information systems throughout the airport, and posting such a warning (maybe even an automated line-delay counter?) is probably pretty trivial. They are well positioned to be nimble about responding to such requests because they've built out the infrastructure.

What's interesting is that even though McCarran's IT staff is doing some really geeky stuff, they're just as excited about the bizware as they are about the geekware. They've got Kalatel video recorders collecting camera feeds from 30-plus cameras at each checkpoint (there are four checkpoints, one at each gate concourse) and they keep 30 days of video around. They're ripping out some (shudder) FDDI and replacing it with Gigabit Ethernet. And they're using some really interesting emulation (virtual machine?) technology that allows them to run all sorts of operating systems (each airline, it might come as no surprise, uses something different) on one "common use" terminal that all airlines can use.But underneath that all (layer 0 of the OSI model?) is a team that obviously likes each other--and actually gives a damn about customers. While I was talking to both upper management and the IT managers, who are hands-on, it was clear that they are all keenly interested in making the technology work to save the airport money, to cut down line time for customers and to keep their airport attractive to the airlines.

Gerard Hughes reminds me of a bunch of guys I work with: ex-military; very personable; obviously works his tail off; cares about communication. He's got a diagram of a PIX hooked to a Cisco ACS in his office. He doesn't show it off to me, but I can see that this guy cares enough to sketch out what he's doing and to show it to others. Believe you me, I've been in plenty of places where the attitude was "slap it in, we'll get it working somehow."

Then there's Dave Bourgon. This guy is a lot of fun. When Dave and I walked into his office he was scrutinizing some kind of countertop material. "What am I now," he chuckled, "an interior decorator?" Apparently, he's got to make the new common use self service (CUSS--clearly, this acronym will change when he rolls this stuff out) check-in kiosks conform to architectural/decoration guidelines in the airport. Nice; details do matter. Maybe that's why CUTE and FIDs have been successful at this airport. Most of us in IT are used to wearing a bunch of hats, and Bourgon is taking it in stride.