SOUTHWEST ASIA -- With as many as 30,000 passengers and as much as 10,000 tons of cargo coming through the base on a monthly basis, the 8th Expeditionary Air Mobility Squadron's aerial port operators are kept busy 24-hours a day.
The squadron is part of the 521st Air Mobility Operations Wing at Ramstein Air Base, Germany and it is part of the Air Mobility Command's in-route system, which is responsible for extending the reach of AMC from the U.S. into the theater.
"This is one of the biggest hubs in the AOR, and aerial port personnel process all the Air Force air expeditionary force people who come through, plus joint forces and civilians as well," said Lt. Col. Fredrick Boehm, 8th EAMS commander, who is a Dewey, Ariz., native. "They are responsible for getting them here and then helping them get to their forward location, whether that is Iraq, Afghanistan or the Horn of Africa. Same with the cargo, it comes in and they transfer that over to aircraft that take it where it needs to go.
"One of the really impressive things about our squadron is we have similar cargo and aircraft throughput as a base like Ramstein [Air Base, Germany], but we have about a third of the people doing the work," Colonel Boehm said. "It's amazing what the amount of people here do on a day-to-day basis."
The three areas that make up the aerial port are the ramp, cargo and passenger terminal sections. The ramp section is responsible for the movement of cargo to and from aircraft.
"We load aircraft and move cargo for everyone," said Airman 1st Class Ashley Myer, air transportation specialist, who is deployed from McChord Air Force Base, Wash. "We are responsible for putting pallets on the planes. We are also responsible for taking any cargo off the planes after they land."
She said the section loads and unloads everything from the rotators that come in, to the C-17 Globemaster IIIs the 816th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron uses to perform drops over Iraq and Afghanistan. In addition, the section provides fleet service, which includes garbage removal and lavatory servicing for the more than 100 aircraft stationed here.
"We pretty much touch every aircraft here," said Airman Myers, a Leavenworth, Kan., native. "If not by cargo, we provide them fleet service."
Once cargo is on the ground and ready to be distributed to the base or is waiting for a flight to go forward into the AOR, it is managed by the cargo yard personnel.
"We move all the cargo that comes through here," said Staff Sgt. William Jordan, 8th EAMS cargo processing section shift supervisor, who is deployed from McGuire Air Force Base, N.J. "If the cargo is going to stay here, it goes to the [traffic management office], which distributes it to the users on the base. If it's going someplace else, we make sure nothing happens to it while it is here."
Sergeant Jordan, a Dallas, Texas, native said the majority of the items they move are categorized as general cargo, meaning the cargo doesn't have any hazardous materials in it. Anything that is hazardous is processed through the special handling section.
"They have a different set of requirements," Sergeant Jordan said. "A lot of it's the same; however they require things like the shippers declaration for dangerous goods."
The passenger terminal personnel are responsible for processing any personnel and their personal cargo to their final destination.
"We process passengers for onward movement into the AOR or redeployment back to their home stations," said Staff Sgt. Robert Nino, 8th EAMS passenger service agent supervisor, who is deployed from Dyess Air Force Base, Texas. "When passengers come in, we make sure they have out processed PERSCO, collect orders if necessary, put them on the mission and check baggage."
Any baggage that comes through is sent through an x-ray machine to search for anything that would violate customs or Transportation Security Administrations requirements. He said once an individual is close to the time where their flight is scheduled to leave, they will emigrate the passenger and, if needed, get their weapon out of the amory, if they were issued one by their home station.
One of the improvements the aerial port personnel have made in the last year was the expeditor program.
"One of the biggest successes we've had here was when we stood up the first aerial port expeditor program last year, it's the first one in the AOR," Colonel Boehm said. "Normally, when you load aircraft, the crew has to be at the aircraft while crew loadmasters load the cargo. What we've done here, is we have trained aerial port experts who can operate the doors on the aircraft and load or unload cargo without the crew being there."
He said the program gives additional flexibility to aircrews because they no longer have to spend time waiting for cargo to be loaded or unloaded, so they can spend more time performing duties in the squadron or get to crew rest sooner.
"All of the aerial porters do an amazing job which is critically important to the base and the AOR because this is a strategic hub," Colonel Boehm said. "We make [the mission] happen by moving passengers and cargo or maintaining and operating C-17s out of here to make that happen."