Year: 2013

How many times have you read or heard during a presentation that aviation security today is essentially reactive and does not have an ounce of proactive thinking included in the process? I suspect that most of us have been guilty of, at least, thinking this if not actually claiming so in public. I am not ashamed to admit that I have. That, however, does not mean that I have not had some proactive thoughts myself; the problem is convincing those in a position to do something that action ought to be taken. It is surprising (or perhaps not!) that many former legislators suddenly have an epiphany of what needs to be done as a proactive measure as soon as they retire; it is just a pity that they did not express the vision when they were in a position to champion change. Or am I being too harsh on them? Is it actually the avsec machine that prevents us from taking a proactive stance?

Thinking back on my career in aviation security, I have had some original, or what I thought to be original, thoughts. Sometimes I did not follow through on them. One such instance was in the late 1990’s, during a Gordon Research Conference in New London, Connecticut. This conference was aimed at developing and future scientific discoverers, basically the white coats who would be designing the technical security solutions of the future. Typical of many conferences are the networking sessions that follow on into the evening, without exception facilitated by free flowing liquid thought inducers!

I vividly remember, together with a practitioner colleague, sowing the seeds of a hair-brained, but simple, scheme to make air travel safer without the use of expensive and complex technology. It was simply to ban all checked baggage in the aircraft hold and, instead, offer an all-in service by providing passengers with clothing and other holiday or business trip essentials at the point of arrival! (Wait a minute! Did we not take a similar draconian measure in respect of carry-on baggage as a response to the 2006 liquid bomb plot?) The idea was based on the traveller renting preselected clothing, travel essentials and other necessary items from an online catalogue and picking them up upon arrival after border controls.

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by Peter Driscoll

I was very pleased to be invited by Philip Baum to contribute to Aviation Security International on the subject of the considerable changes taking place in how aviation security regulation and compliance monitoring are delivered and funded in the United Kingdom. Philip’s timing was very good: the transfer of these functions, and of the nearly 100 posts involved, from the Department for Transport to the Civil Aviation Authority is now on ‘final approach’, and thoughts are turning to what needs to happen next, after we have ‘landed’.

With the 1 April date for the formal transfer coming up quickly, I should first say how good it has been to find most in the industry positive about the potential advantages of bringing security and safety regulation together in a single organisation. My team and I are very much looking forward to getting over to our new home in the CAA’s Kingsway headquarters and beginning to identify the new efficiencies and synergies which I am confident this brigading will deliver. The industry’s advice and help will naturally be invaluable in all of that.

To first backtrack a little… I myself joined the CAA in May this year to take up the new role of Director Aviation Security, having spent the last five years as Director of Security in the Home Office. After more than 30 years in the RAF, focussed latterly on securing bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, I already had both aviation and security in my blood, and so joining the CAA feels like returning home.

The Transfer
The challenges presented by the transfer have been, and still are, considerable, but I am pleased to be able to report that we are well configured for a smooth ‘touch-down’ in April. In the first place this will be a ‘lift and shift’ operation, we hope invisible to users, with all business carrying on exactly as usual up to and beyond that date. So far as industry is concerned, nothing in terms of regulation or compliance monitoring will change from 31 March to 1 April.

We are moving, out of Government, business functions that have, of course, developed over time their own systems and processes, and will now need to be integrated into those of the CAA. There would be no value in aviation security being simply ‘bolted on’ to the CAA, as a separate activity. We are determined to make it a fully functioning, integral and respected part of the CAA – to which it will bring valuable expertise of its own. The benefits will flow both ways, we are sure.

One respect in which things will change from 1 April is of course the funding of these transferred functions – the cost of which equates to just less than 5 pence per passenger per journey – which will from that date be provided by industry, rather than by the taxpayer. One of the principal drivers for the move is the wider Government agenda of moving towards a ‘user pays’ regime, which this change will bring about.

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Sadly for Los Angeles World Airports, over the past few months the eyes of the aviation security world have focussed on actual attacks perpetrated at LAX. Most airports have in place a sophisticated security infrastructure designed for the ‘never never’; after all, even in the US, which clearly considers itself to be a potential target for terrorist activity, the chances of any individual being on duty when an attack takes place is minimal.
There are an abundance of security challenges being posed to airport authorities around the world. Airports are becoming centres for civil action as demonstrators take to runways in order to make their point; in October, employees of a food processing plant in Brest, France, lay down on the runway in protest at job reductions at a local abattoir, whilst in November Tuareg demonstrators occupied a runway in Kidal, Mali, in order to prevent the Malian Prime Minister from visiting the town. They are also places at which serious organised criminal acts, where the aviation industry is not the target per se, occur; in November, Vyacheslav Zapryagayev was shot at Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow and the thieves escaped with a bag containing $1.6 million which Zapryagayev was, for unreported reasons, carrying.

Airport security departments have to deal with minor criminal acts, such as the woman who decided to try and swing from the Kinetic Rain sculpture at Singapore’s Changi Airport in November or the two British women who decided to strip off at a Manchester Airport security checkpoint last December. And, airlines and airports alike have to deal with their daily peppering of unruly passengers, whilst the other security agencies intercept smugglers, inadmissible passengers and vagrants. But terrorist and other serious incidents, where the airport itself and/or its users are the targets, are, thankfully, a rarity.

One must, therefore, feel sorry for the LAX authorities who, within the space of three weeks, had to respond to, and manage, two serious attacks. On 13th and 14th October, a series of dry ice explosions took place at LAX terminals and, on 1st November, Paul Ciancia allegedly murdered TSA officer Gerardo I. Hernandez, and injured six others, at a security checkpoint.

Some may be quick to point out that the perpetrators were, in fact, probably merely psychologically disturbed individuals rather than lone wolf terrorists. Others will recognise that an armed gunman walking into a crowded passenger terminal with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle and effecting the targeted killing of a TSA officer is equally serious and, granted the copycat nature of persons with such a mind-set, arguably more vexing. And if it is proven that the perpetrators of the dry ice attacks were Servisair employees, one must question the effectiveness of not only pre-employment screening, but also post-employment monitoring. The insider threat, whilst not in the form of terrorist activity, is crystal clear.

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The last two decades have seen remarkable developments in the use of homemade explosives devices (HMEs). These have been used to great effect by terrorists, causing significant damage and death around the world: Oklahoma, USA (1995); Bali, Indonesia (2002 and 2009); Madrid, Spain (2004); London, UK (2005); Prune, India (2010); Oslo, Norway (2011) and Boston, USA (2013). Whilst these attacks took place on the ground, the aviation industry has not remained unscathed with the 2001 shoe bomber and 2009 underwear bomber being notable incidents. Both perpetrators were successful in smuggling HMEs onto an aircraft; fortunately both devices failed to properly detonate and the assailants were restrained by passengers and crew. It was more through luck than effective security that these incidents were not catastrophes.

These events, and the 2006 trans-Atlantic liquid explosives plot, triggered immediate security responses. In response to the underwear bomb attempt, full body scanners were deployed at some airports and a number of new screening devices have since been developed to detect liquid explosives within bottles. This has led to the perception that the threat has diminished but this is not true. Only two of the incidents above, London and Madrid, used liquid explosives, all of the others were based on inorganic explosives.

Inorganic explosives are a different class of explosives whereby the oxidiser and the fuel are separate chemicals. The classic inorganic device is ANFO – ammonium nitrate fuel oil (as used in the Oklahoma City bombing). Existing Explosive Trace Detection technology does a reasonable job at detecting this explosive in large quantities, although sensitivity is poor when also screening for commercial/military explosives. More problematic are those made from perchlorate and chlorate salts which are mixed with aluminium, sulphur, charcoal, sugar or a range of other fuels to make an explosive. One only needs to perform a basic search of the internet to find multiple videos demonstrating the power of these explosives, and those so inclined can find quite explicit instructions on how to prepare these explosives in their kitchen.

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In the last decade, security measures have been strengthened substantially in passenger screening. Interestingly, cargo screening did not quite follow suit at the same pace, despite its relevance to the global economy and the fact that cargo is often transported by passenger aircraft. Most ports and airports now use X-ray security screening for unit load devices (ULDs) and containers. This technology is particularly useful as it provides an image of the content of ULDs or containers without the need for physical interference. Yet it is still the human operator (security officer) who needs to identify prohibited items in the X-ray image and take the decision on whether the inspected unit can be regarded as harmless or not. Marcia Mendes, Stefan Michel and Adrian Schwaninger explore how we can enhance operators’ ability to identify threats. Most X-ray systems are, after all, only as good as the people tasked to interpret the images they generate.

According to visual cognition and object recognition theories, objects which are dissimilar to the ones stored in visual memory are difficult to recognise (see [1] and [2]). According to [3] knowledge-based and image-based factors have a large impact on human detection performance. Knowledge-based factors relate to knowing which items are prohibited, what they look like in X-ray images and how they can be distinguished visually. They are especially relevant for objects that are rarely seen in everyday life and that look quite different in an X-ray image (e.g. improvised explosive devices – IEDs). Image-based factors refer to characteristics of X-ray images. Objects are more difficult to recognise if depicted from an unusual viewpoint or when superimposed by other objects (effect of superposition). Recognition is also affected by the complexity of the image which depends on the number and types of other objects.

Compared to passenger screening, in cargo screening, taking the decision whether the ULD or container is OK or NOT OK is even more difficult since the inspected containers can be very large while the prohibited items can be comparably small (e.g. an IED or contraband goods). Taking human factors into account is therefore of utmost importance for improving cargo security screening. Pre-employment assessment, computer-based training (CBT) and competency assessment are powerful tools to enhance human factors as has been shown in several applied research studies.

Pre-employment Assessment
The abilities required in security screening are not equally common for all individuals (see for example [3] and [4]). Reliable, valid and standardised pre-employment assessment tests are important to select persons who are suited for the security screening task. The X-Ray Object Recognition Test (X-Ray ORT) is an example of such a test, which was developed based on applied visual cognition research [5]. It contains images of passenger bags, yet, this test may also be used by applicants for cargo screening positions, as the abilities to cope with effects of viewpoint, superposition and image complexity are also important in cargo security screening. The test contains 256 images of passenger bags in greyscale and prohibited items with common shapes (guns and knives) to accommodate the limited knowledge of novices. Threat items are depicted from different viewpoints, at different levels of superposition by other objects and depicted in X-ray images of varying complexity. The test can measure in a reliable, valid and standardised way how well applicants can cope with image-based factors such as effects of viewpoint, superposition and bag complexity (for more information see [3], [5] and [6]).

Computer-Based Training (CBT)
Training is of utmost importance regarding knowledge-based factors. Screeners need to learn which prohibited items exist, what they look like in reality, how they appear in X-ray images and how they can be visually distinguished. CBT can be a very effective tool for the enhancement of human factors (see [2]). In this context, individually adaptive training software such as the X-Ray Tutor (XRT), which contains training levels based on the user’s individual detection performance and learning progress, has shown to be very effective in strengthening X-ray image interpretation performance in cabin and hold baggage screening (see [6], [7], [8] and [9]). Whether this also holds true for X-ray cargo screening was investigated in a study that is described in more detail below (for more information on advantages and considerations regarding CBT see [10]).

Competency Assessment
Initial and recurrent certification is used to assess screener competency. This allows for quality control and provides valuable information to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of X-ray screeners.
However, there are challenges to the implementation of security screening certification tests, namely in the form of questions regarding the precise competencies to be assessed, the specific method of implementation, as well as the issue of international standardisation. The certification results are of high relevance for authorities and security providers alike, and so the tests employed should meet scientific criteria. In fact, decades of psychometric research have shown that reliability, validity, standardisation and fairness are essential qualities of a test.

An example of such a test is the X-Ray CAT for cargo screening (C-CAT). This test was developed based on the X-Ray CAT CBS, a test for cabin baggage screening, which is applied at several European airports for screener certification. It was developed to be a reliable and valid instrument in accordance with scientific principles (for detailed information on the X-Ray CAT CBS see [3] and [11]).

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by Diana Stancu, Managing Director of Safe and Secure Skies.

The number of unruly passenger incidents making it into the news headlines is on the increase. Regardless as to whether or not such reporting is indicative of an actual increase in incidents, as opposed to ‘reported’ incidents, the issue is certainly one of considerable concern to the aviation community and, in particular, to flight crew whose lives are on the line. These incidents impact the safety and security of the aircraft, cause discomfort to fellow passengers and crew, and cause financial loss to airlines when flights have to be diverted as a result. Diana Stancu asks what legal measures are in place to deter and deal with perpetrators of unruly behaviour on board international flights, where the issue of jurisdiction can be a problem.

Passengers used to have so much respect for cabin crew and incidents of unruly behaviour were rare and due, primarily, to a fear of flying and the over consumption of alcohol or use of narcotic substances. Times have changed and the range of causal factors has increased.

According to IATA’s STEADES (Safety and Trend Evaluation, Analysis and Data Exchange System), unruly passenger behaviour increased by 54% in the period 2007 to 2011. In total, there were 6,156 unruly passenger incidents recorded for 2011, up from 5,544 such incidents recorded for 2010. For the period 2007 to 2011, 22% of all incidents were serious enough to require the intervention of police or security services at the place of landing. The data collected was provided voluntarily and even though it gives a significant sample, it does not constitute an industry-wide view of unruly behaviour on flights worldwide. After all, most airlines around the world are not even IATA members and unruly behaviour does also take place on domestic flights which, in places such as Australia, China, Russia, Canada and the US, can be as long as many international flights.
An unruly passenger is defined as a passenger who fails to respect the rules of conduct on board an aircraft or refuses to follow instructions from flight and cabin crewmembers and therefore disturbs the good order and discipline on board an aircraft. Unruly or disruptive behaviour can include: verbal or physical confrontation with crewmembers or other passengers, intoxicated behaviour, the illegal consumption of narcotics, alcohol or cigarettes, refusal to comply with safety instructions, making threats that could affect the safety of the crew, passengers or aircraft, sexual abuse and harassment and other types of behaviour that could jeopardise the safety or alter the good order and discipline on board the aircraft.

These incidents are sometimes referred to the local authorities upon landing. However, when doing so, what should be an easy process is rarely as straightforward as it seems. Many crew describe difficulties in dealing with authorities at foreign airports, not to mention the differences in the definition of offences and the subsequent penalties between jurisdictions, with some unlikely to prosecute at all or only impose a lenient penalty. Moreover, authorities at the place of landing may not even have jurisdiction, thus the prosecution of the unruly passenger is not pursued at all.

The Legal Framework
The Tokyo Convention of 1963, on Offences and Certain Other Acts Committed On Board Aircraft, provides the legal framework for dealing with unruly behaviours on board aircraft engaged in international flights. However, this legal regime does not provide an adequate deterrent for such behaviour, mainly because jurisdiction is given to the State of registration of the aircraft and the jurisdiction for the State of landing does not exist. It is true that the identity of the unruly passenger can be easily established which, in theory, could facilitate the job of the law enforcement authorities, but this does not mean that the passenger can be prosecuted. Depending on the seriousness of the incident, the State where the aircraft lands does not have the jurisdiction to prosecute the offender if the act has been committed on board an aircraft registered in another State; hence, the perpetrator of the incident is left unpunished. The role of the State where the unruly passenger disembarks is not clearly specified in the Convention. In that regard, the Convention fails to directly address a practical reality – the necessity to appropriately deal with an unruly passenger at the point where they are handed over to the authorities on the ground.

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by Steve Wolff

The attempted bombing of cargo aircraft, with improvised explosive devices (IEDs) concealed in printer cartridges, in 2010, once again demonstrated that terrorists continue to have an uncanny understanding of our critical weaknesses and grow more sophisticated in their attempts to smuggle IEDs on board commercial aircraft using different vectors. Steve Wolff looks at current and emerging technologies and explores where we are in countering the ever-evolving threats through screening.

Air cargo is an ideal terrorist target for several strategic reasons. Firstly, it leverages the fact that successful aircraft attacks have a significant impact well beyond the immediate loss of life. For example, many more people die per year from e.g. shootings in the US than were killed on 9/11, yet these individual tragedies don’t disrupt the economy, influence infrastructure spending or affect the national psyche in the same way. Secondly, for cargo, a successful attack, and especially our response to it, has the potential to severely impact the flow of commerce and hence the global economy, given that airfreight is crucial for rapid movement of goods and components in our ’just in time’ (often ’just in the nick of time’) economy. As economic disruption of the West is one of al-Qaeda’s key goals, a successful attack against air cargo (or attacks against mass transportation if they led to draconian screening methods that impacted commerce) would have a more substantial economic impact than an attack via other threat vectors, such as passengers or baggage.

Where We Are
Regulators worldwide have cooperated extensively to develop internationally recognised air cargo security strategies, including initiatives such as improving the supply chain process. Trials of SecureFreight – where shippers are ’known’ and cargo has been validated and secured upstream and maintained throughout the supply chain – are underway. IATA has been advancing its Air Cargo Advanced Screening Programme (ACAS) with the goal of global harmonisation and increased use of electronic waybills and e-cargo security declarations. This approach, which loosely amounts to ’profiling’ cargo, is another example of risk-based screening. Centralised screening facilities (CCSFs in the US), run by the private sector, provide screening to international (or regional) standards. However, there is a critical problem in dealing with ’unknown’ cargo: screening technology for cargo lags about 20 years behind systems that are available for baggage. Fortunately, this may be about to change.

Current Technologies
Today’s technological workhorses for cargo inspection have been X-ray (often just single view, low penetration systems) and trace detection. Most of the major X-ray manufacturers sell pallet-capable dual energy X-ray systems with either single or dual views as well as larger systems. Where needed, due to the inability to see inside dense objects, these have been supplemented with physical search, explosives trace detectors (ETDs) and, in some countries, the use of dogs, either via an innovative sampling, remote K9 inspection process called REST (formerly RasCargo) or using Free Range Explosive Detection Dog teams (FREDD). For certain types of non-metallic cargo containers, metal detection technologies have been considered, but obviously would be of questionable use if non-metallic chemical timer/triggering mechanisms were used as they have been by terrorists inside the aircraft cabin. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and others have explored – and permit – the use of Certified Explosives Detection Systems (EDS) but the small apertures of current EDS systems create an operational problem as cargo pallets need to be broken down for screening and reassembled afterwards, increasing processing time, cost and the potential for damage and theft.

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Whilst many readers have visited Thailand and experienced the seemingly opulent nature of Bangkok’s high rise buildings, temples and hotels, it is also impossible to walk the streets without noticing the beggars with all their deformities, the homeless children and prostitutes. In the western world, prostitution is often a choice or the result of an individual ‘going off the rails’ (whether perceived as such or not); in Thailand, on the other hand, prostitutes are victims of poverty and abuse. In July, Zoë Baum visited Thailand as part of a human trafficking awareness and prevention initiative. She now explains just why airlines must play their part in tackling modern day slavery.

Whilst Thailand is often referred to as ‘The Land of Smiles’ so many of these smiles are masks which thinly veil a multitude of stories of human suffering.

When I visited Thailand earlier this year as part of a human trafficking prevention delegation, organised by the charity JUSTIFI, I met an inspirational woman called Bonita; she had founded Home of New Beginnings. This non-profit organisation is primarily focused on rescuing young girls from the Go-Go bars in Bangkok and taking them to a safe house where they learn how to rebuild their lives and discover new ways to finance themselves. Bonita visits the bars herself, entering as if she was a customer and identifying those who she believes might be persuaded to escape the seedy world in which they have found themselves. Those girls who have the best chance of being saved are younger victims who are not yet reliant on drugs and alcohol to numb the pain of abuse and depression and therefore have to finance the purchase of such substances. Victims who are being exported overseas are less likely to be dependent on substance abuse as they are generally naive and believe that they are travelling for legitimate employment.

It is important to note that these young girls are not persuaded over night. Bonita, with time on her hands and a charitable mission in life, builds a relationship with the prostitutes in order to gain their trust and slowly convince them of alternatives. It is unfortunate that in the aviation

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by Eleena Yegorova Security Manager, International Affairs at Aeroflot Russian Airlines

12 July 2013 was a special day in the history of Russian aviation security; it marked exactly 40 years since the birth of the Russian aviation security system, when the Security Department of the Civil Aviation Ministry of the USSR was created. Eleena Yegorova takes us through the development of aviation security in Russia, from its inception in 1973 to the present day.

As is often the case in the world of aviation security, even the issuance of Executive Order № 1414, which created the Security Department was a reactive measure; the statistics for acts of unlawful interference against civil aviation (see Figure 1) in Russia illustrate a number of pre-1973 incidents. Indeed, the very first attempt to hijack an aircraft was on 25 October 1958 when two criminals at a tiny airport in Cherskiy – a town in Yakutia – attempted to seize an Antonov 2 aircraft. Between 1958 and 1970 there were a few other attempts, yet no one actually succeeded in hijacking an aircraft.

Everything changed on 15 October 1970 with the first successful hijacking of a Soviet commercial flight. 19 year old cabin attendant Nadezhda Kourchenko was killed, and two crew members and one passenger were wounded, by father and son Pranas and Algirdas Brazauskas, Lithuanian nationals, who diverted Aeroflot flight 244, en-route from Batumi in Georgia to Sukhumi in Abkhaz, to Turkey with 46 passengers on board. The young stewardess did her best to stop the hijackers and was posthumously awarded with one of the highest military honours – the Order of the Red Banner. Thousands of ordinary people also paid their respects to her by sending their condolences to her mother via mail and telegraph.

Like elsewhere in the world, the creation of a specialist department to counter the threat to civil aviation was never going to guarantee secure skies. Indeed, on 18 November 1983, 7 people were killed as a result of the attempted hijacking of Aeroflot flight 6833 en route from Tbilisi to Leningrad (now St. Petersburg).

The death toll was greater still on 8 March 1988 when 9 people lost their lives. Whilst 5 of those were hijackers (members of the Ovechkins family, consisting of a mother and her 10 sons), 3 were passengers and one was flight attendant Tamara Zharkaya. 36 other passengers were wounded and the whole Tupolev-154 aircraft was destroyed as a result of the hijacking whilst en route from Irkutsk to Leningrad. Zharkaya was also posthumously awarded the Order of the Red Banner.

But the real increase in the number of hijackings happened in the transition between the Soviet and modern period of Russian history; from 9 June to 30 December 1990 there were nine successful hijackings and 23 attempts; two hijackings and 11 attempts took place in 1991; two hijackings and four attempts in 1992; and two hijackings and two attempts in 1993. Fortunately none of these incidents caused as many victims as the three aforementioned hijackings between 1970 and 1988. Nevertheless, mainly as a result of these statistics, in 1994 the Russian government issued its historical Directive № 897 ‘On Federal System of Safeguarding Civil Aviation against Acts of Unlawful Interference’. Regardless of its age, this document is still sufficiently robust enough to act as the basic state regulation for aviation security in Russia. It was developed by the relevant specialists of the new Civil Aviation Authority of the country; in 1991, the Ministry of Transportation had inherited aviation security responsibilities from the Ministry of Civil Aviation of the USSR.

Valeriy N. Saleyev headed the Russian aviation security system from 1993 until 2000. Under his leadership, key principles, if not the entire philosophy of the system, were set out. These were not just in Directive № 897, but also in the 1997 Air Code of the Russian Federation. Unlike the Air Code of the USSR, a special chapter – Chapter XII – was totally dedicated to aviation security issues. Those principles included all previous experience of counter-terrorism activity in Russia, starting with standard airport access control protocols and featuring the same strict aircraft security measures as the previous Soviet requirements. Long before 11 September 2001, all cockpit doors of Russian-made aircraft were bulletproof and pilots were strictly prohibited from opening the doors inflight.

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The potential use of liquid explosives by terrorists has, since 2006, become an increasing concern for those tasked with protecting civil aviation. Liquid explosives are relatively easy to conceal given their close resemblance to benign liquids already carried by most passengers and some are powerful agents able to cause as much damage as military grade explosives. Amir Neeman takes us through developments in the technologies designed to detect them. The first terrorist attack using liquid explosives was in 1987 against Korean Airlines and, since then, there have been several such attacks and attempted attacks, most notably the trans-Atlantic plot of 2006 which resulted in a raft of policy changes and restrictions to carry-on baggage. However, the significant restrictions on liquids, aerosols and gels (LAGs) carried in carry-on bags, while necessary to address the liquid explosive threat, have come with a high price tag. They created operational inefficiencies at security screening checkpoints by lowering overall throughput and increasing false alarm and bag search rates.

They required a more labour-intensive and thus costly screening process and have worsened the passenger experience for (most) travellers. While many passengers, airlines, airports and airport vendors have adjusted to these restrictions, there remains a fundamental need to implement liquid explosive detection systems (LEDS) in order to be able to fully or partially lift these restrictions and allow for a better flow of passengers and commerce. Major aviation security regulatory agencies such as the U.S. Transportation Security Administration, the European Commission (EC) and the European Civil Aviation Conference (ECAC), Transport Canada and the Australian Department of Transport as well as organisations such as the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) are more than ever working to harmonize explosive detection standards and specifically have recently announced a joint effort to coordinate the phased approach in lifting LAGs restrictions.

A Global Approach

One of the leading regulators on this topic, the EC, has outlined a pathway for the removal of LAGs restrictions in carry-on luggage. By 31 January 2014, Phase 1 of the lifting of LAGs restrictions is to be implemented whereby any traveller transferring at an EU airport, having arrived from a non-EU airport, will be able to carry duty free LAGs purchased within in the preceding 36 hours as long as they are sealed within an ICAO specification Security Tamper Evident Bag (STEB), in addition to any baby food and medicines needed for the flight. By 31 January 2015 Phase 2 will be implemented whereby passengers will be able to carry clear liquids within a clear container. Finally by January 2016 all LAGs restrictions will be lifted. Before those deadlines, airports must have deployed LEDS capable of adequately screening such LAGs. Recently ICAO has issued a statement that Australia, Canada, the United States and the EU are in the process of implementing a multi-phase technology based LAGs screening approach and intend to progressively relax LAGs restrictions at airports in their respective jurisdictions. The LAGs screening technologies to be used will meet standards agreed to between these regulators.

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