... LAX executive director and moderator Gina Marie Lindsey offers, “The question to ask is, nine years later would we build the system we have if we built it today? I’ll bet … no.” She adds that while we continue to add new processes to the security regimen at airports, few of the old processes go away. Lindsey terms it a “bureaucracy-laden system”. Oh and add to that, “The procurement system is a nightmare.”
Good session, held at the annual convention of the Airports Council International-North America.
C. Stewart Verdery, founder of Monument Policy and a former DHS employee, comments that “in some ways we’ve met Groundhog Day … when talking about TSA,” referring to the famous Bill Murray movie. It is, he adds, “an annoyance that we’ve come to accept.”
Robert Poole, director of Transportation Policy at the think tank Reason Foundation, says that, “As created, TSA has a built-in conflict of interest. It basically regulates itself.” Poole thinks a better model would have been the Canadian model, in which the government regulates but the private sector executes. Or, perhaps better yet, have the airports themselves operate all aspects of on-airport security – after all, airports are responsible for many aspects of security outside of screening passengers and baggage. It’s an idea that isn’t all that popular among U.S. airport managers.
Kenneth Dunlap, global director for IATA, says that passengers “are abandoning short-haul routes in droves” because of the security hassle. He, like the entire panel at the session, suggests that more collaboration is needed globally – the U.S. doesn’t have the best system. “It needs to be strategic,” he says.
Dunlap adds that “maybe we’ve been too easy on the regulators.” That is, the industry hasn’t coalesced and come up with a strategic plan on how to attack the threat, and then relate that to the feds.
Good idea. Question is: Would TSA listen? As anyone who has lived the process since 9/11 recalls, TSA’s approach following the tragic day was to ignore airports, their relationships with local law enforcement agencies, and even FAA, the previous overseer of U.S. airport security.
An overriding current that seemed to run through the show on the topic is that it is time to take a global, strategic, best practices approach – one that brings all stakeholders to the table. To TSA’s credit, there has not been another terrorist attack on U.S. soil since 9/11, though there have been attempts. That said, TSA’s ongoing reactive posture to threats and subsequent new requirements have at times brought with them havoc and disruption. Just ask our neighbors to the north.
Thanks for reading. jfi
[Look for more ACI-NA coverage in the October issue of AIRPORT BUSINESS magazine.]