Random airline checks return
U.S. will not reveal percentage of travellers to be searched under new policy
WASHINGTON — Random searches of U.S. airline passengers, abandoned in 2003 to reduce hassles, will return Dec. 22 because airport security has become too predictable, a federal agency said.
After travellers pass through security checkpoints, they may be subject to a pat down, a handheld metal detector, a search of carryon bags or a shoe screening, said Kip Hawley, head of the Transportation Security Administration. A trade group that represents major U.S. airlines said it supports the decision.
“Terrorists do watch our security process to try to understand it,” Hawley said today at a news conference in Washington. “They will not be able to beat the system because it is unpredictable.”
The U.S. government after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks began random passenger screenings beyond checkpoints as an additional security layer. The government abandoned the approach in 2003, after deciding the checkpoints were sufficiently staffed with trained workers.
Hawley declined to say what percentage of travellers can expect to get flagged for searches, which he said will take about two minutes.
The screenings resume the day the agency starts letting travellers carry scissors with blades less than 10 centimetres and tools such as screwdrivers, which account for 25 per cent of items confiscated at checkpoints. Allowing those items lets screeners focus on the bigger threat of explosives, Hawley said.
The security agency by midDecember will add 16 portals to the 43 already at airports that detect traces of explosives on clothing, Hawley said. The use of bombsniffing dogs, already up 70 per cent to 420 since 2003, will also increase, he said.
“ The big worry is that there might be an explosion aboard these airplanes,” said David Stempler, president of the Air Travelers Association, a consumer-advocacy group in Potomac, Md. “Focusing more time and attention through these canine groups or through these explosive detections, that’s where the effort ought to be.”
U.S. airlines support the return of random screenings, said David Castelveter, a spokesman for the Air Transport Association trade group. “ If it took two more minutes of my time to ensure the safety of the plane I’m flying on, I’d be totally agreeable,” he said.
The Washington-based group’s members include major carriers such as AMR Corp.’s American Airlines and UAL Corp.’s United Airlines.
Before the random searches were scrapped in 2003, some airline executives had urged that they be ended, calling them redundant and intrusive.
“ For some reason TSA thinks that dumping out our passengers’ underwear at the gate after it has already been dumped out at the security screening checkpoint makes TSA look like they are on top of things,” Gordon Bethune said in a 2002 speech, when he was Continental Airlines Inc. chief executive.
Passenger screening has become less of a hassle since 2002 as technology improved and customers learned what to expect, Castelveter said.
“They recognize this is a way of life,” he said.
Passengers now face extra screening because of actions such as buying a one-way ticket with cash or refusing to remove shoes at checkpoints. As of Dec. 22, such screening will also be based on random formulas that will change often based on decisions of local security directors, Hawley said.
The pat- down procedure will also change Dec. 22. Instead of tapping passengers’ mid- sections, screeners also may examine their arms, as well as their legs from mid-thigh to ankle, Hawley said. Passengers with exposed skin and close- fitting clothes will be exempt from the arm and leg searches, he said.
Bloomberg