flyblue
29th Oct 2003, 15:14
Security is often loose on corporate jets
Joe Sharkey NYT
Tuesday, October 28, 2003
Passengers at the 429 airports used by commercial airlines in the United States all know the drill: To get on a plane, you must pass yourself and your belongings through a security checkpoint run by federal screeners who use electronic devices to look for guns, knives and other potential weapons.
Setting off the metal detector with as much as a forgotten quarter in a pocket elicits an embarrassing public pat-down and electronic wanding.
But this is not the drill for thousands of daily passengers who fly on corporate aircraft, which usually operate from private terminals at the 5,000 or so domestic airports that do not handle commercial air traffic. In the United States last year, according to industry statistics, more than 10,000 companies operated about 15,500 fixed-wing aircraft, from two-seat turbo-prop planes to jet behemoths that can carry 40 or more passengers.
Yet none of the passengers on those planes receive the preboarding security checks by federal screeners that are standard practice at commercial airports. Very few even pass through a metal detector. And officials in the industry are increasingly worried that lax or haphazard security procedures have created an opportunity for terrorists.
"Corporate aviation is a soft target," said Charlie LeBlanc, a vice president of Air Security International, a company that provides security services for operators of corporate aircraft. Business jets of all sizes make up nearly two-thirds of the total domestic corporate fleet.
"If terrorist groups are looking to continue to use aviation, and if they're thwarted using commercial aviation, they're going to be looking at other forms of aviation," he said.
Not very many years ago, the typical corporate aircraft was owned and operated by a single company, and most passengers were familiar faces. Since about 1996, however, corporate aviation - including fractional-share business-jet operations, private charter flights and programs that hire out corporate jets like limousines - has surged. Increasingly, corporate planes are carrying passengers who are strangers to one another and to the flight crew.
Fractional-share programs, which allow companies and individuals to buy time shares in a jet jointly owned with others, have "added 4,000 new general aviation customers in the last five years alone," said Steven O'Neill, the chief executive of Citation Shares, a fractional-ownership company. "And the average share size is growing smaller."
The overall number of flights by business jets rose 13 percent last year.
At the recent trade show of the National Business Aviation Association in Orlando, Florida, there was abundant discussion about security. Many agreed that to stave off unwanted federal regulation, the industry needed to move aggressively to adopt voluntary, uniform standards for such matters as preflight boarding, aircraft security on the ground and security at corporate airports.
Right now, corporate aircraft security is a hodgepodge of efforts by individual operators who themselves decide "how they want to deal with it," LeBlanc said.
The Transportation Security Administration, whose budget has been strained by the demands of security screening at commercial airports, has so far trod gingerly in dealing with corporate aviation.
In a security advisory to the industry last month, the agency merely urged "vigilance" and suggested that general aviation operators "consider" matters like methods for securing unattended aircraft, verifying passengers' identities and verifying the contents of baggage and cargo.
The New York Times
Joe Sharkey NYT
Tuesday, October 28, 2003
Passengers at the 429 airports used by commercial airlines in the United States all know the drill: To get on a plane, you must pass yourself and your belongings through a security checkpoint run by federal screeners who use electronic devices to look for guns, knives and other potential weapons.
Setting off the metal detector with as much as a forgotten quarter in a pocket elicits an embarrassing public pat-down and electronic wanding.
But this is not the drill for thousands of daily passengers who fly on corporate aircraft, which usually operate from private terminals at the 5,000 or so domestic airports that do not handle commercial air traffic. In the United States last year, according to industry statistics, more than 10,000 companies operated about 15,500 fixed-wing aircraft, from two-seat turbo-prop planes to jet behemoths that can carry 40 or more passengers.
Yet none of the passengers on those planes receive the preboarding security checks by federal screeners that are standard practice at commercial airports. Very few even pass through a metal detector. And officials in the industry are increasingly worried that lax or haphazard security procedures have created an opportunity for terrorists.
"Corporate aviation is a soft target," said Charlie LeBlanc, a vice president of Air Security International, a company that provides security services for operators of corporate aircraft. Business jets of all sizes make up nearly two-thirds of the total domestic corporate fleet.
"If terrorist groups are looking to continue to use aviation, and if they're thwarted using commercial aviation, they're going to be looking at other forms of aviation," he said.
Not very many years ago, the typical corporate aircraft was owned and operated by a single company, and most passengers were familiar faces. Since about 1996, however, corporate aviation - including fractional-share business-jet operations, private charter flights and programs that hire out corporate jets like limousines - has surged. Increasingly, corporate planes are carrying passengers who are strangers to one another and to the flight crew.
Fractional-share programs, which allow companies and individuals to buy time shares in a jet jointly owned with others, have "added 4,000 new general aviation customers in the last five years alone," said Steven O'Neill, the chief executive of Citation Shares, a fractional-ownership company. "And the average share size is growing smaller."
The overall number of flights by business jets rose 13 percent last year.
At the recent trade show of the National Business Aviation Association in Orlando, Florida, there was abundant discussion about security. Many agreed that to stave off unwanted federal regulation, the industry needed to move aggressively to adopt voluntary, uniform standards for such matters as preflight boarding, aircraft security on the ground and security at corporate airports.
Right now, corporate aircraft security is a hodgepodge of efforts by individual operators who themselves decide "how they want to deal with it," LeBlanc said.
The Transportation Security Administration, whose budget has been strained by the demands of security screening at commercial airports, has so far trod gingerly in dealing with corporate aviation.
In a security advisory to the industry last month, the agency merely urged "vigilance" and suggested that general aviation operators "consider" matters like methods for securing unattended aircraft, verifying passengers' identities and verifying the contents of baggage and cargo.
The New York Times