Boeing and Israel's flag carrier El Al have abandoned the idea of forming a joint venture to offer aviation security services and products.
A spokeswoman for Boeing Airplane Services, whose parent Boeing business unit Commercial Aviation Services was the entity that planned to cooperate with El Al in the new venture, confirms the two companies have agreed not to extend an initial memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed last October.
She says the reasons for Boeing's decision not to proceed with the venture were those given by Charles Higgins, vice-president in charge of the company's new security services business unit, in an interview with the Seattle Times.
The Seattle newspaper quotes Higgins as saying Boeing and El Al quickly realised the USA's new Transportation Security Administration (TSA) had its hands too full with the immediate task of meeting congressional deadlines for bag-matching and other security imperatives to pay any attention to the joint venture's future-focused proposals.
Scanners
In addition, Boeing believed security methods used by El Al in Israel and accepted by the country's government and population would have been less acceptable to US regulators and the travelling public.
One of El Al's techniques giving frequent flyers or premium-fare passengers ‘fast lane' access through airport security checks by means of passport and palm-print checks would not translate well to US airport and law-enforcement security mechanisms, the manufacturer felt.
Last week the TSA publicly made clear it would not allow specific scanners at airport security checkpoints to be reserved solely for airlines' high-fare or premium passengers, as had previously been the practice.
The TSA argued that reserving some scanners only for select passengers' use created inefficiency in the overall utilisation of checkpoint equipment, as well as hostility among other passengers. Boeing and El Al also realised Israeli behaviour-profiling techniques used to identify potential terrorists or hijackers could create fundamental civil liberties problems in the USA.
Source: Flight Daily News
