Airport Staff Access Control
Anger is also evident from the aviation an operational policy with a results-
security professionals who feel that orientated culture and utilising real
regulators have lost focus of the actual intelligence, a fixed frontline
threat and recognise that airports are “elipsisif people are able to equipped with sophisticated and
still easy targets for the determined expensive equipment is a waste and
terrorist; it’s just a question of whether steal from luggage, the gets us nowhere.
they elect to do so rather than whether If we could divert some, for the sake of
they have the capability. systemic loophole that argument let’s say 20%, of the energy
Regulatory focus on technology has and money currently spent on
been at the expense of investing in permits such criminally- passenger screening and spend it on
human factors. Normally this means staff checks, freight scanning, catering
training staff, yet I’m referring to minded people into controls, airport perimeter detection
screening them both in terms of and cleaner, baggage handler and
background checks and monitoring them sterile areas could also maintenance worker screening, that
once they are operational. would be a huge stride forward in the
In the aforementioned Domodedovo enable an improvised fight against terrorism!
incident, police officials were bought Currently, most of our “war on terror”
for just US$170. Just like many of the explosive device to be is based on taking action against
aircraft hijackings of the 1980’s, the passengers, 99.9% of whom are law-
terrorists were successful due to the infiltrated into an abiding citizens, whilst ignoring the
complicity of airport staff. Screening other known loopholes. Perhaps the
baggage may be implemented in order unsuspecting strategy is based on economic grounds,
to detect terrorists, but it also enables where attempts to slow down the speed
the airport-based criminal to identify passenger’s bagelipsis” of cargo shipments through additional
an item worth stealing. checks is naturally unpopular. Yet we
Thinking about the old concept of also know that considerably less than a
the “Maginot Line”: if we don’t set up kilo of plastic explosives, hidden within
COMING THIS FEBRUARY 9-12, 2009
26TH
Annual International Cabin Safety Symposium
Torrance Marriott, Torrance, CA
Panels and Training Sessions on:
Promotion of a Safety Culture,
Current Inflight Issues, Aeromedical,
Training & Lessons Learned
Workshops on Disruptive Passengers,
Communication,
Bloodborne Pathogens
and more.....
Hosted by SCSI
(Southern California Safety Institute)
For Registration & Information Contact:
www.scsi-inc.com or
Sharon Morphew – Symposium Manager
Because some things are too imporant at sharon.morphew@scsi-inc.com
Aviationsecurityinternational February 2009 www.asi-mag.com 39
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