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]