The Best Of Airports - Extra Airline/Airport Security - Who Should Pay?

Dear Readers:

Even editrixes need to take a bit of vacation.  And since Aviation Daily will also be on hiaitus the week of Christmas, so will the blog.  But not to fear - I'll be posting "The Best Of"  while I'm away.  And if you haven't been reading us since we began in August, the posts will be new to you!

Editor's Note: this posting originally appeared in the Aug. 24 issue of the blog.  It was written after the foiled terrorist attacks in London, but before further changes were made in security regulations on the carriage of liquids past security.  The debate is still continuing on just where the money will come from to pay for the extra security caused by the new regulations.

As airports around the world worked quickly to implement tighter security regulations caused by the failed terrorist attacks in London Aug. 10, the question has come up -- who's going to pay for all of this?

Well, if you're Giovanni Bisignani, director general of IATA, governments should be the one to foot the bill.  In an interview with French daily Le Monde last week, he said it is too early to estimate the financial impact of the disruptions, but that the world's airlines have already paid an additional $5.6 billion a year in security costs since 9/11.  The airport trade associations have been pretty quiet about the issue, but I can't believe that they would want their already-strapped members to foot the bill entirely.

I made some calls to airports and TSA earlier this week to see if anyone had numbers on increased security costs, and although everyone agreed that costs would go up, they also agreed that it was too soon to speculate just how high they would go.

But it's a good question.  In the U.S., it would only seem natural that the Department of Homeland Security and TSA would foot the bill for airports.  But lately TSA has been saying how it has only a limited amount of funds for existing projects  such as hiring new screeners and installing EDS and EDT inline baggage systems.  Congress is currently working on DHS's FY 2007 appropriations, and although the Senate version includes a provision to lift the screener hiring cap, there's not much more room in the budget to fund this latest round of security regulations.  So this will continue to be a wait-and-see story.

As airports around the world worked quickly to implement tighter security regulations caused by the failed terrorist attacks in London Aug. 10, the question has come up -- who's going to pay for all of this?

Well, if you're Giovanni Bisignani, director general of IATA, governments should be the one to foot the bill.  In an interview with French daily Le Monde last week, he said it is too early to estimate the financial impact of the disruptions, but that the world's airlines have already paid an additional $5.6 billion a year in security costs since 9/11.  The airport trade associations have been pretty quiet about the issue, but I can't believe that they would want their already-strapped members to foot the bill entirely.

I made some calls to airports and TSA earlier this week to see if anyone had numbers on increased security costs, and although everyone agreed that costs would go up, they also agreed that it was too soon to speculate just how high they would go.

But it's a good question.  In the U.S., it would only seem natural that the Department of Homeland Security and TSA would foot the bill for airports.  But lately TSA has been saying how it has only a limited amount of funds for existing projects  such as hiring new screeners and installing EDS and EDT inline baggage systems.  Congress is currently working on DHS's FY 2007 appropriations, and although the Senate version includes a provision to lift the screener hiring cap, there's not much more room in the budget to fund this latest round of security regulations.  So this will continue to be a wait-and-see story.

Comments

[dosibule]

yes, i agree benet