"The Airline Industry and Self-regulation: Pre-9/11 Rules Barred Box Cutters"

The following article from the Associated Press dated November 11, 2002 is
retransmitted to provide perspective to recent reports that screeners
complied with all guidance extant on 9/11. The ATA and RAA developed the
'Checkpoint Operations Guide' in 1994 for their screening contractors in
response to calls for greater industry self-regulation under threat of
stricter governmental regulation after a series of high profile hijackings.


Monday, November 11, 2002

Pre-9/11 Rules Barred Box Cutters
By JONATHAN D. SALANT
The Associated Press


WASHINGTON (AP) -- Airlines failed to enforce existing security guidelines
on Sept. 11 that required airport screeners to confiscate box cutters from
passengers, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

Government rules did not specifically bar the objects before last year's
attacks, but the airlines were in charge of security then, with the Federal
Aviation Administration overseeing their performance. The airlines issued a
manual in 1994 that listed for screeners items passengers could not carry
past airport checkpoints.

The AP obtained a copy of the document, which included box cutters such as
those purportedly used by the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers.

"If they knew these were problems, why weren't they more responsible in
protecting the public?" asked former FAA security chief Billie Vincent.

The Air Transport Association, which represents major airlines, and the
Regional Airline Association, the trade group for smaller carriers, issued
the Checkpoint Operations Guide to implement Federal Aviation Administration
security regulations.

ATA spokesman Michael Wascom said only: "Box cutters were not prohibited by
the FAA on 9-11-01," and refused to comment further. Officials of the
regional airlines' group would not comment.

FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown said keeping box cutters off planes was an
industry requirement, not a government order. She said the FAA allowed
airline passengers to carry blades less than four inches long before Sept.
11. Government rules now prohibit such items.

The manual for security screeners was issued by the airlines' trade groups
to comply with FAA regulations and was in effect at the time of the terror
attacks. The document lists box cutters and pepper spray as items not
allowed past security checkpoints. Screeners were told to call supervisors
if either item were to be found.

Attorney General John Ashcroft has said some of the hijackers used box
cutters to take over the planes, and the indictment of alleged hijacking
co-conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui charged that Mohammed Atta, the leader of
the hijackers, had pepper spray.

Dean Headley, associate professor of marketing at Wichita State University
and co-author of an annual study on airline quality, said airlines didn't
want to invest the time or money before Sept. 11 to check passengers
thoroughly.

"Security was mostly a nonstarter for most people," he said. "The airlines,
knowing it would cost them a bundle to make a bigger deal out of that,
didn't want to spend the money."

After the attacks Congress took responsibility for airline security from the
FAA and the airlines and gave it to a new Transportation Security
Administration. The TSA has until Nov. 19 to replace private airport
screeners with an all-government work force.

Former FAA chief counsel Kenneth Quinn, now a lawyer representing several
airport security companies, said that before Sept. 11, the agency, not the
industry, had the ultimate responsibility for what got onto planes.

"There's only one way to prohibit items from being carried on board
airplanes, and that is through mandatory security directives from the FAA,"
Quinn said. "Relying on trade association advisory materials is an
inherently suspect and deficient way to ensure an important safety and
security task."

Former Transportation Department Inspector General Mary Schiavo, now a
lawyer suing United Airlines and American Airlines on behalf of families of
Sept. 11 victims, said the document shows there were regulations in place
that might have thwarted the hijackings.

"What's disappointing to me is a lot of effort has gone into our government
and others bending over backward saying no one did anything wrong, but it's
clear they didn't follow the guidelines that were in place at the time,"
Schiavo said.

Brown said that since the manual was not an FAA document, failure to follow
its procedures did not violate agency regulations.

Rep. John Mica, chairman of the House Transportation subcommittee on
aviation, said the FAA should have had more stringent screening standards in
place.

"The whole security process was in disarray," said Mica, R-Fla. "When you
don't have the personnel with any standards, and you don't have FAA adopting
specific rules, you have no one to enforce it."


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