Hints of airport security change after BA outburst
By politics.co.uk staff
Philip Hammond has implied the government is looking at changes to the way airport security works, after the chairman of British Airways called many measures “redundant”.
The transport secretary was addressing calls by Martin Broughton to scale back the stringent procedures that often see passengers subject to intrusive and time-consuming security checks.
“We are going to change the system so that we set the security outcomes that airline operators have to achieve, we will give them the flexibility to design the methodology,” he told the Daily Politics programme yesterday, echoing statements made to the UK Airport Operators Association conference.
The BA chairman had told the conference “There’s quite a number of elements in the security programme which are completely redundant and they should be sorted out.
“America does not do internally a lot of the things they demand that we do. We shouldn’t stand for that.
“We should say, ‘we’ll only do things which we consider to be essential and that you Americans also consider essential’.”
Mr Hammond stopped short of suggesting he would push for a change in US attitudes, however, and dismissed Mr Broughton’s criticism of American regulations.
He added: “The US only has an influence in respect of flights to the US and they impose that influence on the airlines, so British Airways has a choice.
“It doesn’t have to operate to the US, but so long as it wants to fly into the US, it’s going to have to comply with US requirements, just as any third country airline flying into Heathrow has to comply with the requirements that we impose on them.”
The transport secretary insisted the government’s policy was under review and would not be moved by the outburst from the BA chairman. Mr Hammond did not however detail the planned changes.
He concluded: “I want to assert the right of every country to define the requirements that it places on airlines that wish to fly into its airspace.”
Security procedures are heightened across the world in the wake of reports of an increased threat of terror attacks since the beginning of the year.
