Only 1/5 of All Air Cargo Screened for Bombs
Although the U.S. Transportation Security Administration says that 100 percent of "high risk" air cargo entering the United States on passenger flights is screened for bombs, that only represents one-fifth of the nine billion pounds of air freight that arrives in the U.S. from overseas each year.
TSA Administrator John S. Pistole said yesterday that even before last week's discovery en route to the U.S. of two mail bombs originating from Yemen, "100 percent of identified high-risk cargo on inbound passenger planes was being screened."
However, according to the international Air Cargo Association, only about 16 percent of air cargo coming from overseas arrives on passenger flights. The rest arrives on all-cargo flights.
The 2007 Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act (a.k.a. the 9/11 Act) required that by August 2010 all cargo on passenger flights must be screened for explosives. The TSA has not met that deadline, citing problems with technology (qualification testing of air cargo screening technologies is incomplete), and the fact that other countries have inconsistent rules governing screening.
According to a June 2010 General Accounting Office report, the TSA expected to have raised the screening level of inbound air cargo on passenger flights to 65 percent by the summer.
But all-cargo flights were not covered under the law.
Pistole said that all inbound international flights carrying cargo are held to TSA security standards as to how air facilities and cargo are accessed; how personnel with access to cargo are vetted; employee training; and cargo screening procedures.
Rep. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., who wrote the 9/11 Act, said this week he intends to introduce further legislation that would extend the 100% mandate to all-cargo flights.
Markey said opposition from business, including the shipping industry and the Chamber of Commerce, prevented the 2007 law from including a screening mandate for all-cargo planes, leaving a security gap. "Following this recent foiled cargo bombing plot from Yemen, now is the time to finish the job," Markey said.
Air freight is often transported in containers that generally are not taken apart to inspect because the process would significantly slow down air travel and the movement of goods.
Currently, airports rely on dogs, trace detection, and visual inspections to check most air cargo containers without having to open them. Screening technology to handle large containers - similar to the passenger X-ray machines in general use - is being tested.
At an air transport business conference in Frankfurt, Germany today, the head of the International Air Transport Association urged governments and industry to rapidly develop effective equipment such as oversized X-ray machines to screen the cargo containers that carry most airborne freight.
Giovanni Bisignani said the technology for such security equipment already exists, but that it is taking too long to approve it for airport use.
(Left: A Heimann Hi-Scan X-Ray machine for screening palletized cargo.
The TSA's Pistole, who also attended the conference, said a delicate balance needs to be struck to ensure that the enhanced security requirements for air freight do not disrupt global trade.
"The flow of global commerce is key to economic recovery," Pistole said. "Security cannot bring business to a standstill."
He said aviation security was a shared responsibility because the latest events showed that "threats evolve as quickly as we can develop mitigation measures."
"This latest plot highlighted two points," Pistole said. "One that we face a determined and creative enemy with innovative design and concealment of IEDs (improvised explosive devices). And second that we have a critical need for global interdependence in aviation security."
The International Air Transport Association did not estimate how many of the new machines will be needed to check all cargo carried by the world's airlines. A single high-radiation machine would likely cost $5-$6 million, according to manufacturers' estimates.
Bisignani urged national governments to shoulder at least a portion of the rapidly expanding costs of aviation security. In Europe this is borne by the airports themselves; in the U.S. it is paid for by the federal government.
"I don't understand why security at a football stadium is the government's responsibility, but aviation security is not," he said, adding that last year airlines around the world paid a total of $5.9 billion for security.
The International Air Transport Association is promoting a plan to monitor and speed up the movement of all air freight through the use of a single e-freight tag that would do away with the dozens of papers accompanying each freight container by replacing them with a single document similar to the e-tickets used by the vast majority of airline passengers nowadays.
"We believe it is now time to abolish paper from the cargo system ... just as e-tickets replaced the millions of paper tickets," Bisignani said, adding that the new system would "allow us to manage cargo security intelligently and efficiently without compromising on speed."
For more info:
AVSEC World 2010 Conference, Frankfurt, Germany
TSA Certified Cargo Screening Program