Amid terror threat, IATA asks govts to harmonise security laws

The appeal by IATA chief Giovanni Bisignani came after a conference attended by US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano, International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) Secretary General Roberto Gonzalez and top executives from 25 airlines and US government officials.

The meeting came on a day when high security alert was issued to all Indian airports and airlines, including Air India, following intelligence inputs that Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba and Al-Qaeda terrorists were plotting to hijack an Indian plane in the region.

In line with the IATA appeal, India and the US recently set up a Joint Working Group of officials of the Transportation Security Administration and the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security to standardise security procedures, including laying down parameters for deployment of sky marshals on flights between the two countries and transfer of security-related technology.

At the conference in Geneva yesterday, IATA and the airlines made several recommendations, including institutionalising government and industry cooperation on security matters. This would allow security policies to be written with the benefit of airlines' operational expertise.

IATA also urged the ICAO to create a template for such cooperation to be implemented globally, a spokesperson for the global airlines body said.
"Governments and industry have the same goals but different expertise. Governments understand the threats and the tools needed to mitigate them. Industry has the operational expertise for effective implementation. Working together is the only way forward," Bisignani said at the conference.

During the meeting, IATA and its member airlines made several recommendations stressing that governments must work with the aviation industry to define practical implementation measures for their security targets.

They also focussed on passenger data collection and sharing it more efficiently, besides having harmonisation of security laws and procedures across borders.
"Governments must talk to each other to ensure that one country's requirements do not conflict with another country's laws," the IATA suggested, adding that current screening technologies must also be upgraded and harmonised.
"We need a checkpoint system that focuses on finding bad people, not just bad objects," Bisignani said.