America’s airports were caught wanting. They need a drastic overhaul
Sep 13th 2001
ONE clear lesson of this tragedy: security at airports was appallingly lax. Terrorists carrying little more than knives and cardboard-cutters managed to hijack commercial planes at some of America’s biggest airports. Belatedly, the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) is tightening standards. But this is a case of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted.
Although the FAA issues security regulations, it has left the implementation of its guidelines to the airports, which oversee airport security, and the airlines, which screen passengers and baggage. Cost-conscious and wary of annoying passengers with bag searches and body-frisks, the airlines place security in the hands of contracted security firms, which in turn rely on underpaid, badly trained screeners.
Some of the worst security breaches have occurred at Boston’s Logan airport, where two of the four airlines were hijacked. In the late 1990s, FAA officials disguised as passengers repeatedly succeeded in smuggling guns and pipe bombs onto planes at Logan. Logan was fined less than $200,000. Just last month, the FAA announced that it was seeking $99,000 in civil penalties against American Airlines for failing to apply “appropriate” security measures on six flights last year.
Gerald Dillingham, director of civil aviation issues at the General Accounting Office, which began an investigation of security at America’s airports after the crash of TWA flight 800 in 1996, says the FAA took too long and did too little to enforce its guidelines. Mr Dillingham particularly blames the FAA for not monitoring closely enough the standards of pay and training of the private security firms employed by the airlines.
Some screeners are paid as little as $6 an hour—less than they would get for working in a burger joint. Most European screeners are paid the equivalent of $15 an hour plus benefits. Screeners in other countries are better trained too. In the Netherlands they receive 40 hours of classroom training, two months of on-the-job training, and 24 hours of additional training each year to stay qualified. In America firms often give only eight to 12 hours of classroom training and just 40 hours of on-the-job training. Amazingly, eye examinations are not always mandatory.
Low pay and poor training mean there are few really experienced screeners. According to the GAO, 90% of all screeners at any given airport checkpoint have less than six months’ experience. Their average turnover rate nationally is 126%. At Logan airport the rate is two-thirds higher. In Belgium, by contrast, turnover is less than 4%.
A journalist from The Economist examined procedures at LaGuardia and JFK last year. One screener who worked for a private security firm was open about her difficulty in distinguishing objects as she screened bags, admitting that she “did not see so good.” And high-tech screening machines are no good if workers don’t use them. At LaGuardia, two screeners operated a $9m machine that can scan up to 225 bags an hour for explosives. But in the half-hour observed by The Economist, the women screened just two.
The lack of concern about security was endemic. One Port Authority police officer stationed at LaGuardia confessed that, when not in uniform, he often got his gun past screeners. “I just go around the machine,” he said.
On the day after the attacks the FAA announced new security measures, including random identity checks, a ban on kerbside check-ins, an end to the sale of knives in airports and the use of dogs and armed guards to patrol the terminals. The FAA will also dramatically increase the number of plain-clothes marshalls flying incognito on planes in America. Logan airport is posting state police officers at security checkpoints. If only they had thought of that before
Sep 13th 2001
ONE clear lesson of this tragedy: security at airports was appallingly lax. Terrorists carrying little more than knives and cardboard-cutters managed to hijack commercial planes at some of America’s biggest airports. Belatedly, the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) is tightening standards. But this is a case of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted.
Although the FAA issues security regulations, it has left the implementation of its guidelines to the airports, which oversee airport security, and the airlines, which screen passengers and baggage. Cost-conscious and wary of annoying passengers with bag searches and body-frisks, the airlines place security in the hands of contracted security firms, which in turn rely on underpaid, badly trained screeners.
Some of the worst security breaches have occurred at Boston’s Logan airport, where two of the four airlines were hijacked. In the late 1990s, FAA officials disguised as passengers repeatedly succeeded in smuggling guns and pipe bombs onto planes at Logan. Logan was fined less than $200,000. Just last month, the FAA announced that it was seeking $99,000 in civil penalties against American Airlines for failing to apply “appropriate” security measures on six flights last year.
Gerald Dillingham, director of civil aviation issues at the General Accounting Office, which began an investigation of security at America’s airports after the crash of TWA flight 800 in 1996, says the FAA took too long and did too little to enforce its guidelines. Mr Dillingham particularly blames the FAA for not monitoring closely enough the standards of pay and training of the private security firms employed by the airlines.
Some screeners are paid as little as $6 an hour—less than they would get for working in a burger joint. Most European screeners are paid the equivalent of $15 an hour plus benefits. Screeners in other countries are better trained too. In the Netherlands they receive 40 hours of classroom training, two months of on-the-job training, and 24 hours of additional training each year to stay qualified. In America firms often give only eight to 12 hours of classroom training and just 40 hours of on-the-job training. Amazingly, eye examinations are not always mandatory.
Low pay and poor training mean there are few really experienced screeners. According to the GAO, 90% of all screeners at any given airport checkpoint have less than six months’ experience. Their average turnover rate nationally is 126%. At Logan airport the rate is two-thirds higher. In Belgium, by contrast, turnover is less than 4%.
A journalist from The Economist examined procedures at LaGuardia and JFK last year. One screener who worked for a private security firm was open about her difficulty in distinguishing objects as she screened bags, admitting that she “did not see so good.” And high-tech screening machines are no good if workers don’t use them. At LaGuardia, two screeners operated a $9m machine that can scan up to 225 bags an hour for explosives. But in the half-hour observed by The Economist, the women screened just two.
The lack of concern about security was endemic. One Port Authority police officer stationed at LaGuardia confessed that, when not in uniform, he often got his gun past screeners. “I just go around the machine,” he said.
On the day after the attacks the FAA announced new security measures, including random identity checks, a ban on kerbside check-ins, an end to the sale of knives in airports and the use of dogs and armed guards to patrol the terminals. The FAA will also dramatically increase the number of plain-clothes marshalls flying incognito on planes in America. Logan airport is posting state police officers at security checkpoints. If only they had thought of that before
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