The director general of the International Air Transport Association, Pierre Jeanniot, has accused the US government of failing to deal with airline security.
Speaking at the IATA Airline Financial summit in New York on 8 April, Jeanniot said that most discussion of airline security since 11 September "has ignored the elephant in the room - the necessity [for] some form of profiling". Profiling would not be race-based, he said, but would depend on "positive profiling" - identifying passengers unlikely to pose a threat and allowing them faster access through security by using biometric identification such as fingerprints or retinal scans. The use of passenger information and biometrics was suggested - and turned down - immediately after the attacks, he noted, "but since then opinion seems to be changing".
John Heimlich, director of economics at the US Air Transport Association, agrees: "We'll never be able to stop the weapons, so we have to go after the people," he said, adding that the responsibility must rest with the federal government rather than the airlines. "The authorities… would have access to more information sources than a single company," he said.
Source: Flight International
