Aviation security faces vulnerability
Australian aviation security is yet to be tested by a major threat on the scale of those seen in the US and UK. But as Doug Nancarrow reports, the industry must keep pace with increased security demands.
The Office of Transport Security’s Paul Retter told an aviation security conference in Sydney in March that “while much has been done to develop and maintain a robust aviation security regime, now is certainly not the time to sit still.
"There are a range of issues relating to current aviation security policy settings, passenger screening, security training and aviation security technology that are underway.
"With the growth of the aviation sector over the next 10 years in Australia expected to average around six or seven per cent per annum, the need for more effective, sustainable and efficient transport security regimes has never been greater.”
Speakers at the same event were concerned that the threat had been pushed back from airside to ‘front of house’, with mass gatherings of people landside now presenting attractive and largely unsecured targets at major airports.
Qantas GM Security Steve Jackson said that, “The impact of a terrorist attack landside may not only offer the devastation achieved from multi-aircraft attacks, it offers the immediate dividends that will undoubtedly resonate across the global aviation industry”.
Jackson went on to postulate future threat scenarios, including secondary contamination of hub airports.
"Recall the assassination in London of a former Russian diplomat in 2006.
"Polonium 210 was used as the assassination weapon.
"This wasn’t a trans-national terrorist attack, but it raised a new generation of aviation security concerns.
"The Polonium was carried into the UK by a Russian agent on board a BA flight from Moscow.
"Once that link was discovered, BA had to clear four aircraft, contact up to 35,000 passengers and liaise with three airports about the potential for primary and secondary contamination.
"So consider the devastating effect of the use of an infectious agent to target multiple airports within an intercontinental hub network.
"No attempt to breach airside security would be required. It would obviously have a huge impact on the industry, and the contamination need not be lethal, the fear factor would resonate throughout the community and passenger confidence would be reduced if not completely devastated.”
On the technology front, airports are still slow to adopt new security equipment, perhaps largely because of unresolved debate about who wears the cost.
The principal security device remains the metal detector, with trace detection for explosives usually a random supplement.
And the liquids, aerosols and gels issue has become something of a farce, with travellers having learned that they can carry the toothpaste etc through security in their pockets.
The requirement for checked bag screening at smaller regional airports handling jet aircraft is also under debate, given that the costs are considerable and the volume of traffic variable and not guaranteed.
Cargo remains a vulnerable sector and action to secure the industry has been slow and fragmented, again largely because of cost ownership issues.
The technology for comprehensive screening of cargo exists but is expensive and is viewed as an inhibitor to expedition in an industry already under threat from other transport modes.
The ASIC identity card system is under a deluge of criticism and complaint, largely because of the inflexibility of the issuing process.
It is currently under review at OTS, but the detail and timing of that review are undisclosed.
Industry believes that there should be a single class of ASIC issued by a central authority directly to individuals who have a valid requirement.
Airport policing has evolved to fit the model recommended in the Wheeler Report, but there is widespread belief that the structure would be severely tested in the event of a major incident.
The interweaving of Federal and state police personnel at and around the major airports is not without its current tensions and potential failures.
OTS has been working with Swinburne University to develop training courses for aviation security personnel, but the security companies that supply the people will tell you that recruitment and retention remain major challenges.
There is a widespread perception that the human resources factor is underutilised in the aviation security regime, but more effective application of the human element (such as profiling) is dependent on the quality of the raw material and the investment in training.
Overall the impression is that the aviation security regime in this country has just been lucky; that the approach to that regime has been fragmented and that as a result it is laced with vulnerabilities ripe for exploitation.