THE top brass at Greater Manchester Police’s (GMP) airport division are now all women.

Superintendent Helen Caldeck, whose appointment was announced on International Women’s Day, is the first female commander overseeing all police business at the airport.

She joins Chief Inspector Gayle Brister to make an all-female management team.  

The new boss is also a tactical firearms commander, and her new appointment makes her the most senior female special operations officer on the force.

Supt Caldbeck said: “The airport is like its own mini police force, GMP’s ‘11th district’. We have neighbourhood officers, response teams, an intelligence unit, planners, our own CID and, uniquely at GMP, armed and unarmed officers.

“GMP officers are out on patrol all the time, on foot or in armed response vehicles, to make sure we always have a visible presence.

“The armed officers will also pick up ‘normal’ policing jobs while they are on patrol.

“Our main aim is to keep people safe, including people travelling through and the 25,000 people working at the airport.

“There are a large number of businesses in and around the airport, including shops and hotels, and we are right on the edge of a major traffic network."

Supt Caldbeck has been with GMP for almost 27 years, spending most of her time in the City of Manchester district.

But she did spend three years at Trafford as a superintendent, and three years overseeing significant change and recruitment at the Force Contact Centre.

She added: “As well as inside the terminal buildings and the roads around the airport, we are also responsible for policing ‘airside’, beyond passport control.

“We will make arrests for not only GMP but also other forces and agencies, and regularly get alerts about somebody who is wanted and trying to leave the country.

“If there is an incident inside a plane then the pilot will grade it from one to four with four being the most serious.

“A grade four inside, someone being aggressive on board or trying to get into the cockpit, will be communicated to GMP by National Air Traffic Services and officers will be waiting to meet the aircraft."