How can airlines protect their planes from bird strikes?
It’s kind of hard once they’re up in the air. The majority of the emphasis is placed at the airports. The airports have a duty to provide our users a safe environment. Most of the wildlife management is done at the airport level. What specific measures are taken? It’s usually an integrated approach where you have habitat modification—changing the environment of the airport so that birds aren’t attracted to it. And you have exclusion, which is preventing wildlife of any kind from getting to or using your airport, anything from fencing to perching wire. Are some airports more dangerous than others in this regard? I can’t speak to that. It depends what species they have in the area. Different species pose different threats and it depends what an airport has for a control program in place. What type of bird is the most dangerous or frequent culprit? Large birds or large flocks of birds pose a more significant threat than smaller, individual birds. It all depends, at each airport, what bird
