What is Stopping One-Stop Aviation Security?

Photo: Edward Betts under CC by SA 3.0 licence

Last week I flew from Manchester to Los Angeles via Heathrow.

I checked in online, queued at the bag drop to check my baggage through to LA, then queued again for the security screening before boarding the flight, which took off 30 minutes late.

This made the connection at Heathrow a bit tighter than I would have wished, but I was relaxed – until I saw the queue for security at Heathrow.  Then the stress kicked in.

According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA) the UK, together with some 30 European countries, has in theory signed up to something called ‘one-stop security’.

Long-advocated by IATA this concept means that once a passenger has passed through one stringent security screening there is no requirement for him/her to pass through the same process again. However, the reality of passenger experience on the ground remains otherwise.

Costly delays

Year on year numerous passengers still miss connecting flights because of being stuck in security queues.  This results in planes being delayed while the unlucky passengers’ luggage is off-loaded, with aircraft then taking off with empty seats and costly alternative travel arrangements being made by airlines and passengers.

A prime example of the continuing absurdities is the daily Royal Maroc Airways flight from London to Marrakesh via Casablanca. Passengers are informed when booking that the plane makes a stopover at Casablanca before continuing to Marrakesh.

Once on board, however, passengers are informed that they have to disembark with their hand luggage at Casablanca and board another flight to continue to Marrakesh.  Curiously eyeing some passengers who are seemingly refusing to disembark, most travellers obediently leave the plane, with their hand luggage, and work their way along endless stuffy corridors following the worryingly intermittent transit signs.

They eventually arrive at a lengthy, slow-moving  queue for security screening.  Having finally got through that they scurry back along the sweltering passageways and board their next flight – which is, of course, exactly the same aircraft with the same crew.

They shuffle back to their same seats past those same frequent travellers who already knew the score and had refused to disembark and are grinning smugly in their seats. The grins start to fade as the minutes tick by and some passengers are still missing, lost somewhere in the darker recesses of Casablanca’s dysfunctional airport.

When the final passengers do eventually materialise their humour failure is evident – duty-free bottles having been gleefully confiscated by Casablanca’s security staff.

The British Department of Transport, which holds responsibility for security at UK airports, has traditionally been reluctant to implement one-stop security for international flights because it isn’t convinced that many other countries’ screening procedures are on a par with those in force in Britain.

For a flight incoming from Morocco that is perhaps understandable, but the UK will not in practice allow one-stop security for transit passengers arriving from Washington or New York – or indeed Manchester.

International standards

The underlying problem is the mingling in the transit area of incoming passengers arriving from countries with differing security regimes. There is a longstanding need for an agreed set of international standards for security screening, together with a rigorous, independent inspection programme.

The UN’s International Civil Aviation Authority (ICAO) would be the natural body to regulate such standards and inspections. Passengers arriving from countries which meet the international standards would be exempt from re-screening, while those arriving from countries which did not yet meet the standard would have to pass through the security process again.

But until such time as agreed standards are in place national authorities will naturally err on the side of caution – to the continuing inconvenience of the travelling public.

The search for agreed international security screening standards has been complicated by the politically-sensitive issues of passenger profiling and personal privacy worries over the use of full-body scanners.

These days IATA and the Airports Council International (ACI) are no longer talking about passenger profiling, instead using new terminologies such as ‘risk-based screening methodologies’ and ‘passenger differentiation’.

Changing the language may facilitate progress, but what is really needed is the political initiative to achieve genuine international consensus – plus the commercial foresight to invest in changes to airport layout.

Further thought mustbe given to the internal design of airports – with the interests of passengers in mind.  At every major airport with sophisticated technology, once passengers have been through the security screening process, they and their hand-luggage are deemed to be ‘sterile’. They do not become ‘unsterile’ in flight.

So when they land there is no logical security reason why these passengers making onward international transfers should be obliged to leave the ‘sterile’ airside zone. By following ‘international transit’ signs to their next boarding gate they can, by design, be kept physically segregated from passengers who have not yet passed through security screening or those who have travelled from non-compliant airports.

Those passengers making domestic transfers would of course take a different route, having to pass through passport control, and might also have to clear their luggage through customs before checking it in again.

But with some thought and consideration for passengers airport layouts could be redesigned to permit this process taking place within the ‘sterile’ airside zone, thus avoiding another security screening.

Even where an airports present physical layout requires significant structural changes to make this work smoothly, there may be no need to wait for the builders.

With a little planning the problem could be overcome in many airports by using sealed and separate buses to transport international and domestic transit passengers from their arriving aircraft to their respective international departure lounge or airside immigration check.

For passengers this would have the advantages of reducing the stress of tight connection times, avoiding confiscation of liquid duty-frees and allowing more time for shopping and consuming. After all, time spent standing in a security queue, shuffling forward with hand luggage, is ‘down time’ as far as airport operators are concerned. After all, airport terminals increasingly resemble shopping malls that just happen to have aircraft.

Make more money

The rents charged to shops and food outlets represent a significant proportion of airport operators’ income and help to slow the steady rise in aircraft landing fees. Airport space is at a premium and airport operators can make more money by installing more retail outlets rather than adding security lanes.

IATA estimates that at any given moment, one quarter of all passengers in a hub airport terminal will be in transit. Take them out of the security queues and the space required for security can be reduced – everyone wins.

The first airports to introduce genuine one-stop security are likely to prove highly popular among frequent flyers.

London Heathrow, with its overcrowding and lack of a mainline railway station linking to the high-speed European rail network, risks losing out to Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Brussels as the European hub airport of choice for long-distance passengers transiting to other European cities.

Building a new runway at Heathrow is one thing, but building a new walkway is another.

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