Source: Iht.com Author: Tyler Brule 08/03/2007
Subject Concerned: Government Opinion Airport
It took them a while but some key figures from the worlds of uncivilized aviation, business and local government finally stood up to be counted before the rest of Europe officially went on holiday on August 3.
On July 30, the director general of the International Air Transport Association, Giovanni Bisignani, took the rare step of going out of his way to publicly scold London's Heathrow airport for its crumbling infrastructure, shoddy services and out-of-sync security procedures. In a communique issued just in time to make the early evening news bulletins across Asia, midday bulletins in Europe and morning shows in America, Bisignani not only publicly shamed Heathrow's management but also took the British government to task in the process. With security policies set by the British Department for Transport, the IATA essentially put the responsibility on Prime Minister Gordon Brown's new government to improve the state of departures, connections and arrivals for British residents, visitors and drop-ins.
One of Brown's new appointments seemed to be speaking from a similar script when the new minister for the city of London, Kitty Ussher, said the poor state of affairs threatened London's position as the world's leading financial center and warned that if the situation continued it could give executives an easy excuse to take their business elsewhere.
Never one to miss a public relations opportunity, albeit a good 12 months late, Mayor Ken Livingstone of London joined the shame game shortly after the agency released its statement. In a colorful barrage, he accused operators BAA of being "out of their skull" and said of Europe's largest airport "it is typical of the English short-termism, lack of planning and investment."
In a feeble response, the airport operator said that it was investing more, across a variety of areas, and the Department for Transport stuck by its safety and security procedures despite the IATA clearly stating that the one-carry-on bag security measures didn't make sense.
Two weeks ago, this column compared and contrasted approaches to security across Europe and prompted a wave of reader comments. The common theme from readers was the need for a clear, sensible and, above all, consistent security policy for airports around the world. While consulting frequent, "professional" travelers might seem like an obvious starting point for any government or security firm charged with coming up with screening procedures, it's clear that those in charge feel that all travelers are equal and as a result should be treated as a unified group.
For starters, airport operators and transport ministries could save millions on consultant fees and also considerable time by getting serious travelers around a table and letting them offer up solutions. In a single session they could get a complete global view on who's doing it right, who's got it wrong and do away with expensive fact-finding missions that see junior ministers and advisers flying around the world on highly controlled research trips that have them "observing" security procedures rather than living them.
One of the first things the professional traveler might tell the likes of BAA and the British government is that you need to deploy more manpower to solve the problem. It's no surprise that airports with efficient security screening setups (Changi in Singapore, Munich, Zurich, Narita in Tokyo) tend to have battalions of people along the processing chain.
The second thing they might hear is that there needs to be a toll-highway approach to processing. Very frequent travelers could apply to use a super-express lane in exchange for additional background checks. Families would be guided to special channels that would mix screening with education so children grow up to be better travelers - don't wait till the last second to take your jacket off, pull out your computer long before you get to the conveyor belt, et al. The elderly and disabled would be offered special lanes with extra staff and space so pensioners don't have to go through the humiliation and stress of having to collect their possessions as they pile up at the end of a conveyor belt set on a single speed.
Finally, they might hear questions concerning technology. "How is it that there's surveillance equipment that can spot insurgent movements in Iraq from high altitude but you haven't invested in technology that can detect explosives in my sneakers from a distance of two feet or determine whether there are liquids in my carry-on?"