That's quite all right.
I'm changing topics to airline security.
Good morning, members of the committee. I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today.
IATA appreciates the leadership of the committee in addressing critical aviation safety and security issues. It's our hope that today's discussions further a much-needed dialogue on the future of passenger screening, not only here in Canada, but globally as well.
Today I'd like to spend a few minutes talking about passenger security screening and also introduce you to IATA's five recommendations for aviation security. I'd like to begin with aviation screening.
As the committee reviews events after the incident on December 25, we expect that many will seek short-term fixes to our security checkpoints. In fact, some procedural changes are probably warranted. However, simply dropping new technology into existing checkpoints is not the answer for the future and doesn't guarantee improved security at our airports. Even the best technology we have cannot detect bad people.
Governments cannot allow calls for new equipment to mask the fact that long-term changes are required for security checkpoints. IATA and our 230 U.S. and foreign member airlines have a vision of future passenger screening that's based on a paradigm shift in the principles behind checkpoint operation. We believe that next-generation checkpoints have to look for bad people, not just bad things.
I'd ask you for a moment to consider our vision of an effective security checkpoint that focuses on finding bad people rather than bad things: passengers are treated with dignity; babies and children with names similar to adults on no-fly, selectee, or the passenger protect list pass through screening uneventfully; and toenail scissors and nail clippers don't trigger an interrogation.
In this scenario, the airport security checkpoint is no longer a first line of defence, but a second look. The dots are connected by intelligence agencies before passengers reach the checkpoints. Plots are disrupted long before the airport. Screeners look for behavioural clues warranting a closer inspection of the passenger.
IATA believes that today's checkpoints work and we certainly are not advocating to this committee to immediately discard Canadian checkpoints for the next-generation checkpoint. However, the day is rapidly approaching when the 40-year-old concepts that serve as their underpinnings, and those of nearly the entire aviation system, will become obsolete.
We believe that the next checkpoint should rely on thorough and pervasive behaviour detection. We believe that highly trained behaviour detection officers who question passengers and observe their mannerisms throughout the screening process would add a strong layer of detection. Tomorrow's checkpoint would enhance behaviour detection by providing screeners with contextual background information on the traveller to assist in the questioning process. This type of intelligence-based behaviour detection would increase both the fidelity and the objectivity of screening.
The system I'm describing here envisions security for tomorrow's passengers as a road bump in their journey, rather than the mountain they confront today. We believe the components of this checkpoint are available, but they require the will to be assembled and delivered to our airports.
Now I'd like to spend a few moments talking about security technology.
I think that security and technology are often confused. IATA remains concerned that new technology is being viewed as the silver bullet for the future, and there is no silver bullet. For every technology with exciting detection capabilities, there are complementary vulnerabilities.
I note that in its deliberations the committee has been discussing body scanners or whole-body imaging with a variety of experts. IATA cautions against viewing this technology as the solution to our most serious vulnerabilities. It is not.
It is interesting. It has novel capabilities. It could be part of future passenger screening. However, it would be wrong to install these scanners in airports and break out the champagne and conclude that we have fixed aviation security, for we would not have done that.
Also, we must not overlook the process through which technology moves from the laboratory to the airport. Fundamentally, this journey takes too long. It's tainted by changing regulatory requirements. And unfortunately, it produces products that don't work in the real world.
Now I'd like to devote a few words specifically to Canadian airport security, based on feedback from IATA's member airlines.
Going through a screening checkpoint has become the number one problem for Canadian passengers. I'm sure I don't have to remind the committee that after the December incident, Canada's airports experienced the longest security delays in the world. In some cases, IATA airlines reported that security delays were up to five hours and 30 minutes for some passengers. On average, in the two weeks after December 25, we recorded delays of three hours across all Canadian airports.
Certainly we can't let this happen again. Passengers deserve better than having to show up three hours early for a 50-minute flight or having to travel with only one carry-on.
But I think there is a path forward.
First, Canada and the United States need to foster better security cooperation. With over 180,000 flights per year between these two countries, coordination can't be left to chance. We think governments let the travelling public down in the aftermath of December 25 because this coordination was not in place.
Second, frequent traveller programs such as NEXUS and Global Entry need to be used for security screening. It makes little sense that passengers extensively pre-screened by law enforcement agencies under these programs get security-screened the same way everyone else does.
Third, CATSA needs more transparency and engagement with industry. This includes service level expectations, staffing, and crisis planning.
We do have a framework for the future that I'd like to introduce to the committee: the five recommendations for aviation security that IATA has provided to the International Civil Aviation Organization. These five specific recommendations apply equally to Transport Canada, CATSA, and regulators across the globe.
First, there needs to be formal consultation between governments and domestic and foreign airlines. Regulators have to understand that aviation is a globally interconnected enterprise, and they have to write security regulations that reflect this reality.
Most often, new rules are written without industry input and review. This deprives the regulatory process of the operational insight and the expertise that industry can provide to regulators. Certainly, greater collaboration would ensure more effective and efficient security measures.
Second, we need to refine the issuance of emergency orders to better address the international environment. Airlines operate across the globe under extremely different environments. Laws, infrastructures, and cultural diversity need to be taken into account when security regulations are being made.
Airlines have hands-on experience in these different environments. However, emergency orders that impose one-size-fits-all measures often force carriers to be placed in a position where they can't comply with these in certain airports, countries, or regions.
Third, we need to eliminate inefficiencies in passenger data collection. IATA believes the key to future screening lies in the leveraging of all of the passenger information currently collected by a government before the start of a trip. Data collected in the name of customs and immigration needs to be merged with data collected for security. And then this comprehensive data should be analyzed by government intelligence agencies before a “cleared to board” decision is issued.
Fourth, we need to strengthen government-to-government outreach to harmonize and coordinate on security issues. Governments around the world have to reach out to each other. One way to do this is to use ICAO's Aviation Security Point of Contact Network. This would allow states to effectively evaluate whether a new procedure is feasible at the world's airports.
Fifth, over the long term, we need to focus on developing a next-generation checkpoint. The December 2009 incident demonstrates that in the future aviation needs smarter, faster, next-generation passenger screening measures to confront new and emerging threats. While our current screening systems are serving us well, their underlying operational concepts and architecture are beginning to show their age. They need to be replaced.
IATA is asking governments to begin to look forward to field a new checkpoint. In the interim, we need to enhance the capabilities of the current system to extend its usable lifetime and its detection capabilities.
In conclusion, as this committee reviews events post-December 25, we expect that many in Ottawa are going to seek short-term fixes to security checkpoints. However, new technology can't guarantee better security, can't detect bad people, and is not the only solution for the future. IATA believes the solution lies in a paradigm shift in how we screen and protect our passengers.
Thanks.