Airport Security
Anyone who had been through an airport recently his thought it. Perhaps as they watch a frail octogenarian getting patted down after their artificial hip sets off the mettle detector or a mother being made to chuck away the baby food she has brought with her. That thought is ” is this strictly necessary?”.
Hopefully security can be dialled back for the majority of passengers - but of course this would not be without its specific problems, in particular the spectre of racial profiling.
After 9/11: airports ‘wasting billions’ on needless security checks for passengers
Airports are wasting billions of pounds on unnecessary security checks for travellers who pose no threat to planes, according to the airline industry’s global body, amid growing support for an airport screening regime that gives preferential treatment to low-risk passengers.
BAA, Britain’s largest airport owner, believes that September 11 launched a new trend in terrorism but it was a later plot – the failed liquid bomb attacks in 2006 – that changed aviation security most radically. Ian Hutcheson, BAA’s head of security, said: “9/11 enhanced the risks from suicide terrorism within the global aviation industry. However, it was the liquid bombs plot in 2006 that had a greater impact on aviation security in the UK and Europe.”
In anticipation of changes to airport security being considered by the UK government and Brussels, this month BAA has launched a trial of state-of-the-art bodyscanners that, it hopes, will ultimately remove the need for metal detectors and full body searches at airports. Specially trained BAA staff are also using “behavioural detection” techniques to single out passengers behaving suspiciously who could be referred to the police or immigration authorities.
The post 9/11 crackdown has imposed multi-million pound security costs on UK airports and airlines alone, but the losses in terms of passenger revenues and the impact on US tourism runs into billions, according to experts. Tyler says global airlines suffered three “lost” years in the wake of the attacks, with passenger numbers not returning to 2000 levels until 2003. Revenues also slumped over the same period, with annual turnover not exceeding the 2000 level until 2004.
