"Air cargo misses much of increased airport scrutiny"

Saturday, August 2, 2003

Air cargo misses much of increased airport scrutiny
Security hampered by large amount and bulk of freight on planes
By DAVE LEVINTHAL
The Dallas (TX) Morning News


Deep beneath airline passengers' feet lurks what some aviation experts
consider the industry's security soft spot, primed for terrorist
exploitation.

Even two years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, federal agents rarely
screen air cargo for weapons or explosives, though each year companies
forklift millions of tons of goods and materials into the bellies of
passenger planes. Cargo companies police their own shipments.

Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, meanwhile, is scheduled to build
one of the world's most sophisticated checked-baggage screening systems by
the end of the year, buoyed by $104 million in federal funds and operated by
a professional, federalized screening force of more than 1,200 workers.

The disparity between cargo and baggage screening must change for air
travelers to remain safe, U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, said
recently.

"The only hole right now in the system is air cargo," Ms. Hutchison said
while boarding a flight at Reagan National Airport. "We know from the
intelligence we have that ... [terrorists] look at our air system and they
look at the flaws in the system."

Cargo shippers say they screen shipments by every method that's economically
and technologically feasible.

All airlines subscribe to the government's 6-year-old "known shippers"
program, which certifies a client's trustworthiness and safety reputation.

The government has banned many types of cargo from passenger flights,
including explosives, toxins and hazardous waste but allows such items as
machinery, consumer goods, animals, plants and U.S. mail.

The development of new cargo-screening technologies needs to improve, but
passengers shouldn't fret about the safety of cargo flying with them,
airline representatives said.

Declined details

Carriers including American Airlines, Delta Airlines and Southwest Airlines,
all of which have hubs at D/FW or Dallas Love Field, declined to discuss the
details of their cargo-screening protocol.

"I will say without hesitation that our employees are significantly more
vigilant than they have ever been," said Dave Brooks, president of American
Airlines Cargo, which last year carried more than 104,000 tons of cargo in
and out of D/FW – the equivalent of about 48,000 Lincoln Town Cars. "This is
probably the best security resource we have – our children fly on our
aircraft, too."

Bomb-screening technology used for passenger baggage simply doesn't work
with large cargo shipments, aviation security experts contend.

"How do you screen a car? How do you screen a cow? There's no real good way
to do it today," said Douglas R. Laird, a former Northwest Airlines security
director who now works as a private aviation security consultant.

Congress is well-intentioned in promoting air-cargo security bills, Mr.
Laird said, such as Ms. Hutchison's Air Cargo Security Act, which in May
passed the Senate and awaits a House vote. But developing sophisticated
screening technology in a short time without significant funding is nearly
impossible.

"It's like saying we'd like to land someone on Mars in two years," he said.
"You can only do what the technology will allow you to do."

Pan Am Flight 103, which exploded in 1988 over Scotland, is the last known
aircraft bombing in which the bomb was in the plane's cargo hold.

Some terrorism experts suspect that a cargo bomb brought down TWA Flight
800, which exploded in 1996 over the Atlantic, though investigators haven't
found proof.

Air-cargo security has improved considerably since the Pan Am bombing, said
Charlie LeBlanc, vice president of operations for Houston-based Air Security
International. The days when anyone could pay to ship almost anything by air
are a distant memory, he added.

What the industry needs, he said, are better methods of tracking the origins
of individual packages – something the government requires for international
but not for domestic cargo. This screening method enhances security without
harming the cargo industry, which thrives on speed, Mr. LeBlanc said.

"You can't slow the process up with security, because if it took an airline
or FedEx or UPS four or five days to get something somewhere, you wouldn't
have a business," he said, adding that the industry already is losing money,
in part because of the weak national economy.

Developing devices

The Transportation Security Administration, a branch of the federal
Department of Homeland Security that oversees aviation security, will
continue developing screening devices to peer inside massive shipping
crates, spokesman Brian Turmail said. About 22 percent of air cargo travels
on passenger planes, according to industry figures.

How quickly the new technology is employed depends more on money, which is
in short supply, than on will, of which the TSA has plenty, Mr. Turmail
said.

Congress this year slashed the TSA's budget by more than 20 percent – more
than $1 billion – forcing it to lay off thousands of security screeners and,
possibly, federal air marshals.

Congress appropriated $20 million for cargo-screening technology in fiscal
2004, Mr. Turmail said. The TSA also plans to increase spot screenings of
cargo with dogs trained to detect explosives, he said.

"The TSA is certainly working as fast as we can. It's pretty clear how
important it is to develop this technology," he said.

The TSA and Congress can't move quickly enough, said Jim Crites, D/FW's
executive vice president. D/FW is the 11th-busiest airport nationally in
terms of cargo shipments, and third busiest in passenger traffic.

"We're very sensitive to the backlog of work that the TSA has," Mr. Crites
said. "But there is the potential for a cargo incident. We're anxious for
them to move forward. It has to be addressed."

By September, when Congress reconvenes after a summer break,Ms. Hutchison
said she hopes lawmakers will make progress on lingering disagreements about
cargo-security funding.

"It's a priority," she said. "It's imperative to have a seamless system."

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