Poking and prying around AVSEC II

Whenever any policy maker wants to improve the passenger experience at Indian airports, he obsesses on the waiting times in queues. As such, there is a lot of pressure on BCAS and the security agencies to reduce that waiting time, even at the cost of screening thoroughness. This is a serious, undesirable trade-off.  Also, most stakeholders (in those 100-odd meetings, remember?) emphasise that the passengers are put off by too much of uniform and an intrusive security presence. What my research threw up was at serious odds with this. 

It is true that a larger number of passengers felt that the waiting times at various security related queues were longer than expected. However, the passenger’s irritation about these is far outweighed by his positive feelings about the favourable aspects of Indian aviation security like our security equipment, procedures, security staff quality, their professionalism, the optics, security-related information flow, threat perception and so on. Further, rather than being irritated by it, the Indian passenger is actually happier and feels safer with higher presence of uniformed personnel around. One of the reasons for this is that he feels that the threat to the nation’s security and its aviation is extremely high.

Waiting time related irritation does not impact the passenger’s satisfaction with aviation security or the passenger’s willingness to participate in the security process or his willingness to pay the security fee; It also has no backward linkages in that no other input factor influences it. Hence, the current obsession of stake holders on reducing security-related waiting times even at the cost of security thoroughness needs to stop.

We must give greater attention to the need of the female passengers who are rating all the aviation security factors lower than their male counterparts. One possible reason could be privacy concerns around screening, their hand baggage and intimate items being scanned by male staff, requirement to remove mangalsutra (auspicious necklace worn by married women) and so on. Another reason may be a male-dominated security staffing. The cause should be further examined and the issue addressed, possibly through more no-contact screening like body scanner, greater female staffing, especially access control and guidance, and segregated handbag screening and threat resolution by female staff. Passengers of international flights tend to rate the security factors less favourably. While there is no variation in perception based on type of residence (urban, rural, etc.), region (north, south, etc.), frequency of flying and age, there is significant variation by education level and income of the passenger. In the communication strategies and interaction, it may be worthwhile to veer away from the current one-size-fits-all approach and adopt a segmented offering. The positive feelings about the aviation security factors are high while the passenger is at the airport and tend to wane after he goes off-airport. To have an engaged passenger, a certain amount of promotion (at least informational) of the security efforts is called for.

The three factors that together go on to create a passenger highly satisfied with aviation security are security staff quality, security equipment and procedures and optics and directions, in that order. In staff quality, the perceived training level at the passenger screening point is the most important. Rather than equipment, the screening procedure of passenger screening is important to the passenger, e.g., fairness in selection of passenger for enhanced screening, satisfactory grievance resolution, etc.. Under optics and directions, security-related guidance by the staff is of critical importance.

Whenever there is any new or fancy security gadget anywhere in the world, the security agencies involved in aviation demand it for India. I confess, I’ve also been part of this when I headed BCAS. As a result, India has some of the best technology in aviation security, e.g., Perimeter Intrusion Detection System, Body scanners, 3-D baggage scanners, Pan-Tilt-Zoom (PTZ) cameras, advanced explosives detection systems, robotic handling devices for suspicious bags and controlled explosions and so on; however, the study showed that there is no substitute for the human factor for creating a passenger happy with the aviation security. When one examines each of the composite factors going into making for a satisfied passenger, the most critical sub-factor is the human-related one. Thus, under security staff, training perception of the security staff at the passenger screening checkpoint is the critical element. Under security procedures, it is the passenger screening; under optics, it is the security guidance by staff (rather than all those fancy SMS and WhatsApp); under security information, explain-speak by staff; under security fee, transparent usage of it; and, under security participation, assisting the security staff. Thus, the human element has stood out as important throughout the various stages of the research. Since there is a trade-off between investing in machines versus investing in humans, if passenger satisfaction be the goal, a greater emphasis on the latter is clearly indicated.

 

Why should we aim to have a passenger who is happy with aviation security? The passenger has to go through it whether he likes it or not. What difference does it make whether he likes it or is extremely irritated by it? Let’s look a little closer. Mandated or not, security is also a service like other service components of air travel like timeliness, comfort, etc.. Believe it or not, “safety and security” is THE most important component of service quality for a passenger in air travel. Study after study confirms this beyond doubt. Service is not like a physical product. It is co-created by the customer. A passenger buying in to security makes for a qualitatively better and more robust security and better throughput because it cuts down the negotiation time between passenger and security personnel and also reduces screening time as the passenger is more co-operative. This, apart from generating valuable intelligence and information for the security personnel.

 

What is also a little less obvious is that even though it’s a mandated service, aviation security does operate in a competitive environment. As the road and rail transport get speedier and smoother and air travel becomes more affordable and accessible to the lower rungs of society because of the ambitious UDAN scheme (Ude Desh ke Aam Naagrik), air travel competes increasingly with other modes of transport. The cost of security in terms of the aviation security fee and inconvenience of waiting times and security processes comes into play in enplanement decisions. The security service providers themselves compete with each other. There has been a lot of lobbying to replace CISF which is perceived as costly even though the DG, BCAS sleeps a whole lot better in the night because CISF is in charge at most of the airports. The passenger also exercises a choice in terms of the price he pays for security by his opinions and perceptions articulated through the public representatives – that is why aviation security fee has been very difficult to revise upwards. A passenger happier with the security will be more willing to pay a higher fee.

 

The passenger is telling us a few things loud and clear. Are we prepared to listen?

Poking and prying around AVSEC

  

This week, something funny happened. I was awarded a PhD by IIT, Delhi, at the sprightly young age of 63!

 

During my tenure at Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS), I must have attended more than a hundred meetings pertaining to matters security. Most of these meetings were marked by heated arguments and counter-arguments about the security apparatus, the need for some of the measures and equipment, the costs, who should pay, etc.. Usually, it’s either BCAS as Veer Abhimanyu ranged against pouncing stake holders bothered about their bottom lines or the security agencies vis-à-vis the rest and the twain never meet. In all this, I found that somehow people have forgotten to ask the critical guy, the passenger, as to what he feels about it all. Even though, in the debates, each one professes to be standing up for what is good for the passenger. So, for my Ph D research, I decided to go to the passenger and ask him/ her. I collected a large number of responses and let the data take me where they would.

 

While some of the findings were along expected lines, some things took me by surprise. Given another go at heading BCAS, I’d do quite a few things differently.

 

I have earlier mentioned in these columns that India is doing extremely well in aviation security, as evidenced by the ICAO audit results. Well, India is not only doing well, it is seen by the passenger to be doing well too. Passengers rate different aspects of the Indian aviation security efforts very high. More importantly, their desire to participate in the security process outweighs even these high ratings. This gives the lie to the attitude of the security agencies that the average passenger needs to be reined in and will violate security regulations unless compelled to comply. So far, we haven’t co-opted the passenger in the security process. Given another stint at BCAS, I’d change that. Nothing much required, really. Just ask him what he feels about things, what he would like changed, open dialogues with the many passenger associations, association of persons with disability, passengers with special needs like autism, engage them under supervision for evacuation, escorting, etc. during bomb threat drills, even train them for assisting and do’s and don’ts during a hijack or other security incidents.

 

When I was in BCAS, it was mandated that at least 15 % of the hand baggage needed to be opened for manual checking. The security agencies were finding it difficult to meet that quota. However, a full 37 % of the passengers surveyed during my research now indicated that they were asked to open their hand baggage. This was a little unexpected. What was expected and hasn’t changed from my time is that a full 79 % of the passengers were not aware that they were paying an aviation security fee. Another 14 %, while being aware of it, did not know the amount. This is the fee charged on the ticket when you book. These do not indicate a happy state of affairs and the reasons are historical attitudes of which I myself have been guilty too.

 

The security providers and the security recipients are operating in silos, in adversarial lock-step. Although the passenger is paying, he is not told what or why he is paying. Actually, there is always apprehension in the minds of the policy makers that the passenger would react adversely to paying for security. Further, that he would be furious about any increase in the same. On the contrary, the survey indicated that the passengers who know about it are very favourable towards the security fee, feel that it is not only justified but also it would be used transparently. They are also in favour of paying more and would be happy with differential pricing based on class of ticket, airport size, threat categorization of airport and so on. Although this may make it more complicated, it may be worth a pilot trial, especially because many of the airports complain that the fees collected fall short of security payouts that they have to bear.

 

A service provider focused approach (as opposed to a customer-centric approach) can have counter-productive consequences. For example, the Hold Baggage System (HBS). These are the centralized baggage scanning systems you find in the bigger airports. In the smaller airports, you hand over your registered checked-in baggage to an airline guy manning his airline’s X-ray machine. So, you’ve to run around finding out where your particular airline has set up shop, go there yourself, put the bag into the machine. After it is cleared, the airline guy puts some sticker or strap on it to prevent tampering, then you carry it yourself to the airline check-in counter which need not be close to that airline’s X-ray machine, hand it in, the check-in person verifies the seal/ strap and then starts the check-in process. On the other hand, under the HBS, you just hand it in at the check-in counter for an integrated check-in and baggage screening, regardless of the airline. This was expected to improve the passenger experience and reduce his inconveniences. However, the survey threw up the result that the passengers are associating this system with longer waiting times and are getting irritated by it. Either the added waiting times at the check-in counter is outweighing the convenience or the perception needs to be acted upon. HBS is extremely expensive and if it doesn’t lead to higher passenger satisfaction, something is not right. There is also the added matter of HBS improving the security because individual airlines may have differing screening standards and security is as strong as its weakest link. Why not tell the passenger?

 

[To be concluded]