ALPA White Paper Frames New Approach To Enhance Aviation
Security and Improve Travel Experience
ALPA, the Air Line
Pilots Association, is calling for improvements in the
aviation security screening system that will allow trustworthy
passengers to be promptly cleared through security, while focusing
much greater resources on those whose trustworthiness is unknown or
in doubt.
“We’ve learned that if there’s a will,
there’s often a way to do harm, yet we still screen everyone
essentially the same way and spend most of our security resources
looking for objects, not indications of hostile intent,” said
Capt. John Prater, president of ALPA. “Identifying
trustworthy individuals is critical, so that more time and scrutiny
can be given to those passengers about whom little is known and to
those who may intend to do us harm.”
In a white paper released Wednesday, titled “Meeting
Today’s Aviation Security Needs: A Call to Action for a
Trust-Based Security System,” ALPA calls for identifying the
trustworthiness of each passenger through a combination of publicly
available information, human interaction, and behavior-pattern
recognition.
“The objects that can be used
to cause harm are constantly changing, but the intent to do harm
remains constant,” said Capt. Robb Powers, ALPA’s
National Security Committee chairman. “A trust-based approach
will, most importantly, create an even more secure air
transportation system, but it will also limit privacy intrusions,
leverage existing resources, and make screening more
efficient.”
Collaboration among the government, airlines, and ALPA is
essential to determining the specific means of putting a
trust-based system in place. Actions must include examining ways to
incorporate security into airport facility design, protect airport
entrance points, address the “insider threat,” and
guard against aircraft sabotage.
In addition, ALPA has played a key role in developing, and
advocated for enhancing, other proven aviation security initiatives
that will complement a trust-based approach. These initiatives
include efforts to install lightweight and low-cost
“secondary” barriers to protect the flight deck when
the fortified cockpit door is opened, and to continue to foster the
Federal Flight Deck Officer program in the United States, which now
includes many thousands of trained, armed pilots protecting the
flight deck with lethal force. ALPA also has underscored the stark
difference between the security of passenger flight operations and
that of all-cargo operations and calls for improving all-cargo
security.
“Airline pilots feel a profound obligation to safeguard
the 800 million passengers and millions of tons of freight we fly
each year,” continued Prater. “ALPA looks forward to
working with government and the airlines in what must be an
expeditious and collaborative effort to better safeguard our
passengers through a trust-based system of aviation
security.”