Britain: Billions Wasted On Needless Airport Checks, Say Airlines

The International Air Transport Association, whose members include British Airways, Virgin Atlantic and more than 200 global airlines, said main airports were struggling to cope with mounting layers of safety regulations that now cost the financially troubled industry $7.4bn (pounds 4.6bn) a year to implement. Tony Tyler, director general of IATA, said: "We spend a huge amount of resource on screening people who quite frankly do not need it.

"We need to find a better way of doing it. Apart from the cost, we are putting our customers through an immensely complicated and, most of the time, unnecessary, hassle. And airports are creaking at the seams to find the space and capacity to deal with this."

Tyler backed a programme being developed by the US Transportation Security Administration, where low-risk passengers could be given less stringent checks if they supplied information including frequent flyer details and travel records. He added that governments should pay for aviation security, not airports, airlines and ultimately passengers. A big manufacturer of airport screening equipment, the UK-based Smiths Group, has seen annual revenue from its detection gear business rise after 9/11 from about pounds 130m to pounds 574m last year - an indication of the costs that have been passed on to passengers.

BAA, Britain's largest airport owner, believes that September 11 launched a new trend in terrorism but it was the failed liquid bomb attacks in 2006 that changed aviation security most radically. Ian Hutcheson, BAA's head of security, said: "9/11 enhanced the risks from suicide terrorism within the global aviation industry. However, it was the liquid bombs plot in 2006 that had a greater impact."

The attempted liquid bomb attacks prompted limits on liquids in hand luggage and a short term ban on all carry-on bags. Hutcheson added that airport security needed to become less predictable because, as the liquid bomb attempts showed, terrorists remained fixated with attacking airlines. "It is clear that the terrorist is not deterred from planning and carrying out these types of attack. This is partly due to the fact that some of the things we do are predictable and our challenge now is to identify different ways of delivering security."

In anticipation of changes to airport security being considered by the UK government and Brussels, this month BAA has launched a trial of state-of-the-art bodyscanners that, it hopes, will remove the need for metal detectors and full body searches at airports. Specially trained BAA staff are also using "behavioural detection" techniques to single out passengers behaving suspiciously .

The post 9/11 crackdown has imposed multimillion-pound security costs on UK airports and airlines alone, but the losses in terms of passenger revenues and the impact on US tourism runs into billions, according to experts. Tyler says global airlines suffered three "lost" years in the wake of the attacks, with passenger numbers not returning to 2000 levels until 2003. Revenues also slumped over the same period, with annual turnover not exceeding the 2000 level until 2004.

The industry has made a multibillion-dollar loss in seven of the last 11 years. This year it expects to make a profit of $4bn but that represents a global profit margin of just 0.7%, with much of the industry's financial strength drawn from low-cost carriers.

Nonetheless, the industry is in comparatively stronger financial health than in 2002 when it reported a net loss of $11.3bn, although high oil prices caused a $16bn loss in 2008. The aftermath of the attacks saw some carriers sunk by the slump in traditionally profitable business-class and long-haul travel. However, low-cost airlines such as Ryanair and easyJet have thrived as they bought hundreds of aircraft at cut-price rates and sated the public's desire for cheap short-haul trips, regardless of time-consuming security checks.

"The desire to travel for all kinds of purposes has turned out to be a basic human need," said Douglas McNeill, analyst at Charles Stanley Securities.

Global airline passenger numbers have risen from 1.8 billion in 2000 to an estimated 2.8 billion this year, showing that despite high security and fuel costs the airline can at least rely on strong demand. McNeill added: "Overall the security systems achieved what they set out to do. The day after 9/11 it was far from clear that the airline industry could withstand the terrorist threat, but it has."

Rail operators also believe they have benefited, with Eurostar now the dominant player in the rail/air market between London and Paris and Brussels, and Virgin Trains and the east coast mainline also seeing a rising share in the London-to-Scotland rail market.

Some key markets for US-bound tourism have yet to recover, however. The number of trips to the US by British and Japanese tourists has not recovered to pre-2001 levels, according to Euromonitor, a consumer research specialist. Total international tourism to the US has recovered to pre-2001 levels, although that took until 2007. Euromonitor adds that security checks including demands for pre-flight information have reduced the appeal of the US to foreign travellers.

"These increased security measures have deterred some visitors and others have complained about how difficult it is to get a visa. The US accounted for 7.3% of global arrivals in 1999, which fell to 6.2% in 2010," said Euromonitor's Michelle Grant. In some areas at least, and with Asia now the engine for global economic growth, the US may never recover.

Captions:

Hijacked United Airlines flight 175 heads for the south tower of the World Trade Centre as the north tower burns fiercely after American Airlines flight 11 crashed into it at 8.45am Photograph: STR/Reuters