A Personal View S
Expressed by Banu Nair
ince the first act of unlawful interference with aviation over 80 years ago, and especially since the tragic events of 9/11, the aviation industry has had to adapt to an ever-changing range
of threats and develop enhanced security initiatives to prevent future attacks. On the one hand, these initiatives offer greater protection to the crew, passengers and third parties, yet on the other hand some of these measures fly in the face of basic safety rules. There is now a perception, albeit wrong, that safety and security are opposing disciplines. Security-initiated incidents can easily become flight safety concerns. For example, unruly passenger behaviour can result in an aircraft having to divert or make an emergency landing; any unplanned landing creates additional safety risks and results in additional workload for the crew. Furthermore an unruly passenger incident, whether or not the aircraft has to divert, impacts upon the well-being of all on board and interferes with the crew’s ability to focus on flight safety procedures. Unfortunately, it is evident that disruptive passenger events are on the rise. What is happening on the streets is now happening on board commercial aircraft, on almost all airlines and in every cabin class. The tendency to view disruptive behaviour as an in-flight concern that can only be solved onboard needs to be rethought and the industry needs to start acting on the ground to both detect early signs of potentially unruly behaviour and prevent incidents that are, in many cases, obviously going to escalate into in-flight security, and therefore safety, incidents. Unruly behaviour is usually the result of a series of events, many of which are known to ground personnel (e.g. delays, queues at checkpoints, alcohol consumption, upgrade denial), and the potential impact of those incidents is clearly apparent. Steps to prevent such passengers boarding and for the unruly individual to be dealt with whilst on the ground, where the assistance of security and other related authorities is readily available, need to be taken. Most airlines would argue that they do deny boarding to passengers that they have concerns about, yet many of these potentially unruly passengers could also be identified by other airport personnel. Screeners and ground handling agents naturally, but also vendors at airport retail outlets and eateries. Prevention is the most effective mitigating measure to acts of unlawful
interference, including unruly incidents, and it is the responsibility of the entire industry. Check-in counters, airport concourses, security checkpoints, lounges and boarding gates should be considered as filter points that can play a role in identifying and, thereby, solving the potential problem before it affects the safety and security of an aircraft in-flight.
As the passenger check-
in process becomes more automated, the number of airline personnel actually interacting with passengers at the airport is decreasing. Airline representatives are only meeting the passenger far later in the process, often only when he or she is boarding the flight; all the more reason for
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...potentially unruly passengers could also be identified by other airport personnel. Screeners and ground handling agents naturally, but also vendors at airport retail outlets and eateries...
other airport-based employees to play their role in the security process. With online check-in and self service kiosks becoming the norm,
screeners are often the first officials that passengers encounter at an airport. Accordingly, aside from performing their primary duties of detecting prohibited items and identifying passengers who may intend to attack a flight, they need to be better trained to recognise and report passengers that might not intend to commit a crime yet who, as a result of their deteriorating behaviour, may still pose a challenge to aircrew in-flight. And, airport vendors - especially those serving alcohol at airside restaurants and bars, where passengers may spend considerable time after having cleared the screening checkpoints - need to be brought into the security web that protects the industry. In almost every airport, commercial and government entities co-exist and form different pieces of the airport security jigsaw puzzle. Our challenge is to make sure that all the pieces fit together and act in a collaborative fashion. This means that clear channels of communication and efficient processes need to be developed between core security agencies and other airport stakeholders; the former must also respect and value the input of the latter. Airlines have developed such processes for use in-house and CRM
(crew resource management) skills have helped bridge the gap between flight deck and cabin crew (where, formerly, the flight attendants views and input were undervalued). CRM can also help in the airport environment and enable all the pieces of the jigsaw to be put together. A more co-ordinated, tactical response to the issue of disruptive passengers, let alone other persons who may pose a risk to the integrity of a flight, can be achieved through information sharing between a broader range of stakeholders. In the airport or in the air, as states or as companies, as individuals with security responsibility or as bystanders, the issue of acts of unlawful interference will continue to tax us in terms of flight safety and associated expense (e.g. diversions). While safety and security share the same goal of safeguarding civil aviation, they are both corporate functions necessary for the survival of the industry. That’s why these two disciplines should be addressed more systematically. CRM behaviours stand as the last line of defence, and threat and error management (TEM) procedures must be applied in order that safety and security remain as they should – friends; never foes.
Banu Nair is an Aviation Security Specialist with Turkish Airlines. December 2012 Aviationsecurityinternational
THE F INAL WORD
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