At a time when Congressional legislators are already grousing about loss
of service to small communities, the new Twelve-Five Standard Security Program
(TFSSP) could further erode small community air service and "cause chaos in the
air feeder cargo industry."
A major sticking point is lack of sufficient infrastructure at many
airports to satisfy this version (and the previous version) of the TFSSP airport
security requirements, both in terms of operator and airport personnel and
facilities.
The Regional Air Cargo Carriers Association (RACCA) requested that the
U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) postpone, for 90 days, the
implementation date of the most recent TFSSP revision, pending further review
and consideration of comments by TFSSP operators.
RACCA wants the proposed cargo security regulations revised to reflect
the difficulties of staffing, communications capabilities and infrastructure at
many airports which are not staffed full time and where the only two people to
show up at the airport all day is the UPS, DHL or FedEx driver and the landing
pilot. RACCA is currently working with TSA to try to iron out the problems.
"Our association has repeatedly offered to work directly with TSA so that
the framers of that document will better understand our operating environment,
and can develop policies and procedures that satisfy TSA security requirements
and at the same time be practicable for the TFSSP operators," said John W.
Hazlet, Jr., vice president of technical affairs for the organization. "We
reiterate that offer, and emphasize that such input from RACCA and other
stakeholder associations would be a major step forward in developing a mutually
acceptable TFSSP document."
While the latest revision reflects some concerns of cargo operators, it
retains other aspects that remain "difficult, impractical or impossible to do."
RACCA said, if those provisions remain, operators will likely have no choice but
to terminate services to numerous small rural airports, restrict service
features or areas as economically unfeasible or be in violation of the TFSSP's
requirements.
RACCA members are not the only ones concerned about the proposed airport
security regulations. On-demand operators and charter companies also oppose the
proposals, which were originally crafted with little participation of those
segments of the cargo and passenger aviation industry.
For the most part, the programs were based on those applicable to large
cargo and passenger operators, and did not account for the unique
characteristics of smaller operators.
One operator indicated that TSA is now realizing the proposed regulations
did not account for the diversity of passenger and cargo operators and is now
trying to reach out to that segment of the industry.
