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Abstract
Keeping the public safe in airports has become a prominent issue over the last few decades as airports across the globe have morphed into infrastructure eco-systems that act as self-contained cities. Airports are faced with many possible safety challenges daily including terrorist threats, active shooters, unruly passengers, unattended bags, security breaches, drugs or weapons, theft, suspicious persons, fires, and power outages. In addition, many publicly owned and operated airports have limited staffing when it comes to managing and addressing these public safety challenges. Prior to this study, little research has explored whether co-production is a viable solution for addressing the growing number of public safety challenges facing airport public safety administrators today. This study contributes to the literature on co-production by exploring via interviews with senior public safety administrators the extent to which they engage with citizens, employees, and passengers/visitors at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport to co-produce public safety. The interview participants indicated that there were minimal instances of public safety co-production occurring at the airport. This study also explored whether public safety administrators perceived value in co-producing public safety with citizens, employees, and/or passengers/visitors. This studys findings suggest that public safety administrators perceived value in engaging employees in some public safety efforts, but not citizens and passengers/visitors. The findings also indicated that there were several challenges that make implementing co-production strategies difficult, such as the organizational environment, federal safety-related regulations and requirements, security considerations, financial and resource costs, and a lack of buy-in from public safety administrators. The presence of these challenges indicates that co-production of public safety in an airport facility environment might be a difficult and unrealistic approach to addressing the growing number of public safety challenges facing airports today. However, because co-production is such a complex and important topic, further study is warranted to determine if these findings are consistent across the aviation industry or peculiar to the case studied.