Airlines, Facing Fines, Told to Tighten Security Checks

Transportation Secretary Elizabeth Hanford Dole ordered the Federal Aviation Administration on Thursday to take “more aggressive action” to make airlines tighten screening of passengers and their carry-on baggage, and to fine those that provide inadequate airport security.

Her actions come at a time when airport screening procedures have been criticized. In one report issued last month, the General Accounting Office, an investigative arm of Congress, found that one in five mock weapons carried through airport security checkpoints went undetected.

Dole said a comprehensive review of airport security that she ordered in February, 1986, has disclosed that, although existing screening procedures do not require a major overhaul, “the system must be strengthened through a variety of actions.”

She released the latest report by the task forces making the review along with recommendations that she directed the FAA to implement.

Among her actions, Dole ordered:

--Tougher hiring standards for screening personnel.

--Changes that will require the FAA to conduct more frequent tests of screening personnel with a greater variety of test objects.

--The targeting of specific airlines or security contractors with substandard performance.

--Fines against air carriers “for any failure to detect test items” at airport security checkpoints.

The nation’s airlines generally contract with private security firms to conduct passenger and carry-on baggage screening at security checkpoints.

The task force report said that, although some air carriers have successful screening operations, over time the nation’s airlines “have demonstrated that they have an interest in minimizing the costs of providing security.”

The best screening programs “had behind them a carrier committed to a first-class operation,” the task force report said.

“The goal of FAA’s airport security program is to draw the security net as tight as needed to ensure airline passenger safety,” acting FAA Administrator Robert Whittington said. “These new, aggressive enforcement actions will help get that job done.”

Changes Urged

In the new report, the task force reviewing passenger and carry-on baggage procedures also recommended that the FAA:

--Close all airport concourses beyond security checkpoints to all but ticketed passengers.

--Require air carriers to actively participate--not just exercise oversight--in the training of personnel who conduct screening procedures, rather than leave this training entirely to subcontractors.

--Review procedures for testing metal detectors and X-ray devices, and require that these devices be calibrated frequently and be secured so they cannot be changed by unauthorized personnel.

The latest directives from Dole follow other steps the FAA has taken to develop new devices to detect weapons and explosives, to tighten background checks of airport security personnel and to implement new security measures for checked baggage and cargo.

For example, curb-side baggage check-in no longer is permitted on international flights.

“The U.S. airport security program already is one of the most efficient in the world, basically because it is constantly evolving to meet each new challenge,” Whittington said.