ON Monday, a live crocodile was smuggled in a passenger’s bag onto a plane departing from an airport in Congo.

While on the plane, the reptile escaped and imagine the chaos it caused in the small aircraft. The crew and passengers ran for the ****pit and this caused an imbalance which led to a crash near Bandundu. The incident killed 20 but there was a survivor. The crocodile survived only to be later, hacked to death by machete-wielding locals on the ground.

We had our own incident of reptiles springing out of a bag on a conveyor belt at KLIA while on transit to Indonesia not long ago. Till now, we wonder how the bag full of reptiles managed to board a flight from Penang to KLIA en route Indonesia.

Wildlife smuggling is banned yet some endangered species manage to get to the skies. They are a threat to passenger security and safety onboard and so are terrorist threats.

In the wake of 9/11, the shoe bomber, the trans-Atlantic plot and the underwear bomber, the US has ensured there are layers of security built into the system. Each time there is an incident, the US responds by adding procedures. Once these measures are in place, they will become almost permanent. Today, we have to remove shoes, liquids are banned, our electric gadgets go through different scanners and we are exposed to full-body imaging scanners.

Chairman of British Airways Martin Broughton wants the practise of forcing people to take off their shoes and have their laptops checked separately in security be dropped. “There is no need to ‘kowtow’ to the Americans every time they want something done."

 

 

This week, the chairman of British Airways Martin Broughton is taking on the US for their layers of air security which he calls ‘redundancies.’

He is telling airport operators, especially in Britain, not to “bow down too quickly at Washington’s demands for air security.”

He wants the practise of forcing people to take off their shoes and have their laptops checked separately in security be dropped.

“There is no need to ‘kowtow’ to the Americans every time they want something done.

“America does not do internally a lot of the things they demand that we do.

“We shouldn’t stand for that. We should say we’ll only do things which we consider to be essential and that you Americans also consider essential,” he said on Tuesday at the airport operator’s association conference.

His remarks have sparked a debate attracting more support from the travel trade across Europe to call for a review of the air security arrangements. Surprisingly, the International Air Transport Association which is normally quick to respond to issues, has remained silent on this.

Broughton wants to convince us that a review is key and his rationale is that all the redundant security checks burden European airports, airlines and passengers. Not only are the European airports having different set of security checks for US-bound passengers, but also airports in Asia and elsewhere or forget about landing on American soil.

This leaves us with one big question – will America heed Broughton’s and his allies’ calls for a review of its air security procedures or will it just brush aside the calls? Going by Broughton’s rationale, airport checks are onerous and have gone too far.

But how much checking is really enough to avoid a major catastrophe, beyond just dreadful reptiles showing up next to you in the cabin?

Source The Star