Airport Security in the Pandemic Age

June 23, 2021
For security professionals, working during a pandemic can be fraught with tension as we all navigate this new terrain.

While many people around the country were under stay-at-home orders, security professionals, classified by the federal government as essential personnel, have continued to report to work during the pandemic at our nation’s airports.  The heart and soul of the physical security business are the nation’s contract security professionals who assume leadership roles – sometimes with lifesaving ramifications – at airports across the country. Airport security professionals can act as the first line of defense against civil unrest, violence, terrorist attacks and the pandemic. 

For security professionals, working during a pandemic can be fraught with tension as we all navigate this new terrain.  The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recommend social distancing procedures, regular disinfection and sanitation and foot traffic management. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) continually adjusts and updates its security operations during the COVID-19 global pandemic to meet the current and future security needs of the nation’s transportation systems and remains dedicated to keeping travelers and all frontline workforce healthy and secure.

Far Fewer Passengers at Airports in 2020

During the 2020 pandemic year, the TSA reports that there were nearly 500 million less passengers at our country’s airports.  The International Air Transport Association (IATA) reported that 2020 saw a total of around 1.8 billion air travelers — 60.5% fewer air travelers than in 2019, and about the same number of passengers as in 2003. 

Today, with millions being vaccinated daily and States rolling back pandemic restrictions, more Americans are returning to leisure travel.  However, airports serving major cities are seeing far fewer travelers than they did in early 2020. Washington National, San Francisco International and Kennedy Airport – the hub airports that serve the majority of our nation’s business travelers - are seeing significantly less passenger volume.

Landside vs. Airside

There is no doubt that the pandemic presented significant challenges to providing physical security to airport transit hubs.  Airports are divided into landside and airside areas. The landside area is open to the public and physical security includes parking lot oversight, curb side assistance, etc., while access to the airside area is tightly controlled. The airside area includes all parts of the airport around the aircraft, and the parts of the buildings that are only accessible to passengers and staff, regulated and requiring identification/badges to enter. While the reduction in passengers resulted in less manpower needed on the landside, the airside required significant security manpower. 

Pre-COVID, insider threats have long existed in the airline industry, such as when a Horizon Air employee commandeered a turboprop passenger plane from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport in August 2018, or an American Airlines mechanic tampered with an aircraft's air data module system in 2019. Hence, the pandemic resulted in the potential of an increase in insider threats.  At a time, when unemployment is at record highs, people are losing their homes and can’t pay their bills, the attraction of accepting dark money to do deceitful deeds can be tempting.

Insider threats may originate from unlikely sources and security personnel need to think outside the box and not only consider their own immediate workforce but anyone who is given access to sensitive areas. The TSA, airport operators, air carriers and their security vendors share the responsibility to mitigate insider threats at airports.

As of February 2021, the CDC has mandated that all airline travelers must wear a face mask throughout the travel experience. Some people get angry about what they perceive to be an affront to their civil liberties, whether it is having to wear a face mask, removing their shoes at airport security screening or limiting the amount of fluid allowed in their carry-on bag.   Airport security has to ensure passengers and staff are compliant in these mandatory regulations. 

Travelers may be asked by security to adjust their mask for ID verification or if it alarms the security screening equipment. Security personnel are on point to ensure travelers abide by TSA recommendations including:

  • Maintaining a social distance of six feet while at the checkpoint.
  • Removing belts and all personal items from pockets including wallets, keys or phones before entering the checkpoint queue and placing them in a carry-on bag.  Removing food items from carry-on bags and placing in bin for screening. (Does not apply to TSA PreCheck members).
  • Practicing good hygiene, such as washing your hands regularly, including directly before and after completing the security screening process or using hand sanitizer.

COVID-19 has affected staffing and operations across the airport environment, potentially adding time to traveler’s pre-flight experiences which may irritate and frustrate some travelers.

Hence, increased insider threats coupled with, what some people see as an assault on their personal liberties, has resulted in greatly increased security manpower at our nation’s airports.  Physical security is being even summoned to deploy assistance teams for The National Guard, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and forum aviation flights. 

Future of Temperature Screening

An increasingly widespread and emerging practice being implemented by U.S. airports, as well as businesses and governments, is the use of thermal body scanning to identify people with a fever who may be sick or are about to be sick.

The Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (HNL), the largest airport in the State of Hawaii, located in Honolulu on the island of O'ahu, rolled out state-of-the-art thermal body scanning screeners to help detect passengers with a temperature of 100.4 degrees and above.

Close Contact Screening – Airport security professionals, wearing protective equipment, are screening passengers with close contact temperature hand-held, FDA-approved gauges. These devices allow for non-contact screening to detect differences in temperatures and pattern changes.  Alarms show on screen when an object or person is detected to have an elevated temperate.

Distance Screening – Utilizing thermal cameras with associated artificial intelligence software and equipment, airport security professionals are using advanced distance screening technology, with no personal protective equipment (PPE) required if passenger can maintain distance greater than six feet, for high traffic situations.

Distance screening technology includes mounted imaging kiosks which include specialized cameras integrated directly with artificial intelligence technology that analyzes and compares data against predefined parameters.  On-screen instructions and automated alarms provide a convenient solution for high-capacity screening.

High traffic distance screening technology also includes walk-through temperature sensors with built-in cameras that detect apparent temperatures of people by reading the energy emitted from the subject’s surface.  Hot spots can indicate a fever or underlying infection.  These analytics take multiple images in less than a second to ensure that the hottest spot is captured from multiple images if the person moves during image capture.

Pandemic Staffing Challenges

With incidents of assaults and trespassing on the rise, security has been on point with airside duties ranging from removing disruptive passengers from flights to taking temperature checks at the gate.  With security being a public facing position, some security professionals tested positive or were symptomatic of COVID-19.  So, airport security personnel, who are highly and specifically trained that are infected or symptomatic, are quarantining for two weeks.  Losing trained, elite security staff for weeks, is a logistical challenge.  How do you ensure there are qualified security to fill in who have regulatory compliance?  How can we ensure security personnel, who have not worked in six months, who have expired badges get an updated background check, retraining and security clearance so that they can assume post?

Thinking Outside-the-Box to Keep Public & Staff Safer

The pandemic has taught us that organizational leadership needs to remain flexible, be able to adapt and be vigilant. Some of the ways we are working to keep the public and staff safer are:

  • Modifying schedules to limit exposure to the virus is an important first step in airport security personnel management.
  • Providing personal protective equipment (PPE) for security personnel who surveil passengers at airports.
  • Highest Disinfection Standards - While a technology revolution was already in motion before the pandemic with biometric screening starting to roll out at airports, the pandemic has brought urgency to the race to make passenger air travel more hygienic. On the ground and in the air, robot cleaners and ultraviolet disinfection with ultraviolet C (UV-C) are taking center stage. Terminals are being kept as safe and clean as possible, including electrostatic cleaning of all boarding gates between flights, use of hospital-grade HEPA filters within the facility air handling system and hand sanitizing dispensers placed throughout the terminals.  
  • Communication is Key - Messages to the public ensuring the integrity of the airport’s safety and security protocol is an important factor in building trust and acceptance with new CDC safety mandates. It is vitally important that open lines of communication are kept with staff, stakeholders and even competitors.  When the chips are down, in the physical security world, we are all one team.

COVID Operational Impacts on Critical Infrastructure

Today’s airport security professional is a highly trained employee with access to cutting edge technology including artificial intelligence.  They are trained to implement a variety of safety and health screening services. Airport security professionals are also working with their clients to design and implement screening solutions that best fit the environment, requirements and existing security operations.  State-of-the-art technology that connects artificial intelligence and human response to better protect people with accurate real-time data and safer social interaction is becoming the ‘gold standard’ in our industry.

Robert Wheeler is Vice President, Aviation/Maritime Operations at Allied Universal. He can be reached at [email protected]. Allied Universal, a leading global security and facility services company, employs more than 800,000 people with revenues exceeding $18 billion.