Originally Posted by
bocastephen
I was the back office as well as working at the counter and gate as needed. Staff were available and present at all times until the last flight departed.
If the airport management office called our station manager and said “get your aircraft off gate B35 immediately! We have another flight with an emergency“ you can bet every resource would have sent out to get it done, with the police there watching to make sure people were moving quickly and keeping order in the gate area if we had to interrupt or delay boarding.
When you have a life and death situation, you don't waste time calling airport or station management, you call first responders. Honestly, at my station, if they had called the GM, it would have taken even longer. The GM was rarely around (and would have no idea who was qualified for a tow or even what was needed for that), so that would be a wasted phone call. They'd just tell you to call ops (or CFR if it was life or death).
At a busy outstation like LAS you don't have 5 people sitting around anytime but perhaps overnight. They can't magically create all the employees (and more importantly the required training for brake riding and certification for taxiway movement that most airports require), contractors and equipment needed to immediately tow an airplane. What would really happen is what I described: in a life and death situation, you have emergency services come to you. 30-60 minutes is too long to wait for someone in cardiac arrest or stroke. If it wasn't immediate life or death or if there was time to prepare, like a medical diversion calling in before landing, likely the ramp tower would look to see if there was a gate or stand somewhere else where they could park quickly and be met. Even that is going to take some time to arrange a crew to receive the aircraft and walk/ride to wherever they get sent, bring airstairs to plane, arrange buses, etc. If your station could do an unplanned tow in the middle of the operation in under 30 minutes during a heat wave, congrats, but that's not the way it is at most stations (or even hubs).
From my experience, there are very few rampers who are trained to brake ride, and certified by the airport for movement on the taxiways. At an outstation, that's probably just a small handful of people, and they are usually on the overnight shift when towing is typically scheduled. Maintenance (if the station has it) or a pilot can also brake ride, but pilots brake riding is rare, unless they just happen to be on the plane that needs to be towed. I'd assume they might be type specific for that too. (i.e. brake riding a CRJ900 is a different process than a 757)