Security or commerce: which comes first?

Date: 05/06/03

By Peter Chapman

IT WAS always the nightmare scenario: al-Qaeda terrorists plant a bomb on board a fuel laden jet with a flight-path above the bustling streets of London or Paris. The result: carnage.

Since 11 September 2001 - and the devastating accidental plane crash which occured in New York's Queens district just days afterwards - no one has doubted the risks.

Governments were duty-bound to bring safety to the top of their agenda.

However, industry experts are now quietly voicing big concerns about swathes of new rules to beef-up security.

John Goldsworthy, aviation security manager for TNT Express, said the odds are stacked against terrorists ever finding a hole in his industry's defences - not that companies are taking any chances.

For a start, a cargo jet is a less attractive target for a terrorist plot.

"A terrorist device is designed to cause fear, panic, spread alarm and despondency.

"To do that, a terrorist organization is inevitably going to target the maximum 'audience' available, therefore there is far more likely impact of such a device being placed on a passenger carrier aircraft than there is of a cargo aircraft, which might only have a crew of three or four."

At the same time, he adds, express firms do not publish timetables, and have very strong in-house security measures, including screening equipment.

Firms also have long-standing relations with most of their clients, and pick up deliveries from their customers' own addresses.

Even when they use the cargo holds of passenger airliners, that means the parcels inside will have passed a long line of security checks, likely to be even more stringent than those faced by the paying customers in the aisles above.

Nevertheless, EU member states and the US are on the brink of adopting rules that could wreak havoc, not only on express firms, but the whole trading system.

"Over-regulation will strangle the industry through measures totally out of proportion to the threat.

They will impact commercially on express carriers but also to their customer base, which is 99 business to business customers."

The bottom line, Goldsworthy adds, is that over-regulation will "stall the recovery of the global economy".

Two sets of rules are to blame for sleepless nights across his industry. The first is a new EU regulation on aviation security adopted in January this year.

This law allows a system to 'fast-track' parcels through airline security - provided they have passed stringent checks by the express company responsible for picking up the consignment.

However, instead of delivering a harmonized system, Goldsworthy warns that member states could try to insist on an array of extra checks before goods can enter the cargo hold.

This patchwork of rules would be a hassle that could slow down deliveries and increase costs.

The US Customs Service is to blame for another potential hammer blow, says Goldsworthy. American authorities have recently passed strict rules - known as Strawman proposals - forcing shipping companies to give officials a detailed list of goods to be carried towards the US a day in advance.

They are about to pronounce shortly on requirements express delivery firms, sending goods by air, will face.

Industry on both sides of the Atlantic is lobbying US authorities - and trying to gain a sympathetic ear in Brussels.

The stakes are enormous, says Goldsworthy, adding that express companies could not even live with the requirement of giving four hours' notice, let alone 24.

That could already add a day onto most delivery times - enough to interfere with business client's 'just in time' production systems. "The impact on trade would be absolutely phenomenal."