they all flew the mail - and at a time when the mail itself was not the threat. The mechanical contraptions called flying machines in which they travelled, and the vagrancies of rough, unpredictable weather, were far more likely to cause them to ’hit the silk’ and bail out of their aircraft, or worse. The U.S. Post Office (USPS), when
C
asked, is quite direct about its relationship with airlines the world over. “The U.S. Postal Service was an integral part of the development of the commercial air transport industry, and U.S. Mail has flown on passenger aircraft for as long as they have been in existence. Throughout our long partnership, safety and security has been paramount,” says Denise N. Backus, a U.S. Postal Inspector based at USPS headquarters in Washington, D.C. Passenger carrying airlines
August 2010 Aviationsecurityinternational
harles Lindbergh, Elroy Jeppesen and Ruth Law all had one thing in common -
w o r l d w i d e owe a huge debt of gratitude to the last century's U.S. Postmasters, who essentially bankrolled the development of transcontinental air routes, all whilst coddling the vision that airlines would carry the mail around the world - speeding commerce as they did. Charles I. Stanton, an early airmail
pilot who later headed the Civil Aeronautics Administration in the United States, said about those early days of scheduled airmail service: “We planted four seeds … They were airways, communications, navigation aids, and multi-engined aircraft. Not all of these came full blown into the transportation scene; in fact, the last one withered and died and had to be planted over again nearly a decade later. But they are the cornerstones on which our present worldwide transport structure is built, and they came, one by one, out of our experience in daily, uninterrupted
f l y i ng of the mail." Post Offices the world over
followed suit with USPS, as aviation in their own countries evolved, using the national flag carriers, typically, to carry international, and occasionally, domestic mail. It is estimated that 25% of all USPS mail travels via passenger carrying airlines today, and some 46% of all mail worldwide is handled, at some point, by USPS. A specific number of pieces, however, is not forthcoming, because, as Postal Inspector Backus explains, “
...it is our policy to not discuss USPS methods in any specific terms because disclosure may undermine their intended effectiveness.” Suffice to say, all estimates are in the billions of pieces handled. The tradition of mail being carried,
at least in the U.S., on passenger airlines, came to an abrupt end -
www.asi-mag.com 25
Whether the package was simply dropped into the local post box or sent by courier, it might well end up on a commercial airliner carrying passengers and crew. Amy Laboda looks at what screening processes and security practices can be deployed by the postal services and airlines to ensure that air mail is safe to fly
Air Mail:
cleared to fly
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