What is a Hazard Vulnerability Analysis (HVA) and how is it used in airport risk management?

• A. It forecasts weather patterns for flight planning.
• B. It is a financial audit of airport expenses.
• C. It identifies potential hazards and their impacts to prioritize risks and allocate mitigation resources.
• D. It measures customer satisfaction through surveys.

Answer: (C)

A Hazard Vulnerability Analysis focuses on identifying hazards and their potential impacts to prioritize risks and allocate mitigation resources. In airport risk management, this means listing possible threats—such as severe weather, floods, power or IT failures, security incidents, or pandemics—and evaluating how likely each is to occur and how severely it would disrupt critical operations like runways, terminals, and essential systems. By combining likelihood with consequence, you get a risk ranking that guides where to invest in mitigation, such as backup power, redundant IT systems, improved maintenance, staff training, and coordinated emergency response plans. This analysis also informs contingency planning and capital decisions to reduce vulnerabilities and speed recovery after an incident. The other options don’t fit because forecasting weather for flight planning, conducting a financial audit, or measuring customer satisfaction are not about identifying hazards, assessing risks, and directing resource allocation for resilience.