The US secure flight programme begins today, and although passengers onboard flights subjected to these checks can be sure that the cabin is safe from a shoe bomber or the like it is now obvious that freight being transported in the belly of the aircraft may well be a danger. Security companies are in for a further bonanza as measures are put into place to further minimise the threat in future.
Air freight times will be extended and costs will increase in what is a further setback to aviation and, in turn, globalisation. But it would take a dramatic shift in our way of life to seriously damage the future prospects of air freight growth. Nevertheless, as reported last week, air cargo is already in a new downturn and there is always the chance that this could be further deepened by the events of last week.
One of the bombs sent from Yemen to the United States travelled on two passenger aircraft before being seized in Dubai, Qatar Airways confirmed yesterday.
The bomb was carried on a Qatar A320 from Sanaa, Yemen, to Doha, Qatar. It was transferred onto another Qatar Airways plane to Dubai, where it was seized by police.
It is now clear that the same bomb maker behind the foiled bombing attempt in Detroit last Christmas was responsible for the two found on Friday. The second bomb was found in England at East Midlands Airport after passing through a series of secondary checks including one set of checks by the UK police, such was the ingenious methods employed to conceal the devise. In the end the explosives were found hidden in printer toner cartridges late Thursday and early Friday aboard UPS and FedEx cargo planes.
Many airlines wondering about the future of security, schedules and costs would do well to have a look at the workings of British Airways World Cargo and DHL Global Forwarding. When they agreed earlier this year to share information and standardize procedures for high-value and high-risk air cargo they set into place something that can in fact now help them a great deal as security is tightened they will find that they have many of the required measures at their disposal.