New Safety Rules Praised, Panned

The new airport restrictions rolled out Thursday are likely to do more to frustrate passengers than repel would-be terrorists, but may help make Americans realize that air travel can no longer be simple and convenient, security experts said Thursday.

“It is an aspirin for a big headache,” said Israel Boim, president of Houston-based Air Security International and a former Israeli intelligence officer. “I know you cannot function if you have a headache. But these [measures] aren’t what need to be done.”

Security precautions take time to implement, he and other experts say, and the United States needs to get as serious about airline safety as Israel, Britain and other nations already have.

New security measures include a ban on curbside check-ins, more questioning before ticketing, a ban on passengers carrying knives and a prohibition against anyone but ticketed passengers beyond security checkpoints.

Past efforts to tighten airport security have generally been rolled back after the shock of a terrorist act has faded. Airlines have routinely failed to abide by existing security regulations, critics say.

For example, American Airlines, which lost two planes to hijackers Tuesday, was fined $99,000 on July 31 for violations. Special agents of the Federal Aviation Administration found that the airline failed to perform proper passenger identification checks, ask appropriate security questions or stop unaccompanied bags from being loaded on jetliners.

Calling for ‘Wholesale Review’

But at least some experts who have called for stronger security in the past said they thought this week’s catastrophe could change such practices.

“The events of Sept. 11 demand a wholesale review of commercial aviation, not just renewing a menu of old security measures,” said Brian Jenkins, a Rand Corp. scholar and former member of the White House Commission on Aviation Safety.

Jenkins believes that the public now understands the clear and present danger of terrorism within U.S. borders and can properly weigh that against the costs--the loss of some civil liberties and convenience.

Some of the new security measures brought widespread support, including the ban on all knives--even small pocket knives--from flights. But security consultants and scholars who have studied airline safety were less sure about the policy of removing steak knives from first-class meal service. They find it ridiculous that some airlines and concessionaires were confused about whether, under FAA rules, they could even give passengers plastic knives.

“That makes my head hurt,” said Mike Wermuth, a Rand researcher and project director of a Defense Department-funded advisory panel on combating terrorism. “It adds silliness to all this.”

Other items on the FAA’s list of restrictions provoked instant derision.

Terry Trippler, a longtime travel agent in Minneapolis, sent out an e-mail poking fun at the call to keep cars at least 300 feet from an airport gate, which he said would eliminate half of the parking places at his hometown airport. He also took issue with limitation of access beyond checkpoints to ticketed passengers only.

“When is the last time a plane was hijacked by someone with a car bomb?” he asked. “When was the last time a plane was hijacked before it left the gate by someone without a ticket? By Grandma and Grandpa seeing off the grandkids?”

Dawn Deeks of the Assn. of Flight Attendants has been advocating stronger measures to protect the group’s 50,000 members. But some of the new policies, she said, seemed misdirected.

“No curbside check-in: I’m not sure what the FAA is targeting in these things,” she said.

Federal officials have said the idea is to have trained airline workers, not baggage handlers, asking travelers the first round of questions.

A federal rule put forward by the FAA before Tuesday’s attacks would give the agency direct oversight of screening companies that staff airport checkpoints and would impose rigorous standards for training and testing. The rule is expected to take effect later this month.

As it stands now, each airline is responsible for its own security.

Security consultants and experts say the new rule is long overdue. Most want to see low-paid contract workers replaced with well-trained government employees with the power to arrest suspects.

The Rand group that Wermuth manages, called the Advisory Panel to Assess Domestic Response Capabilities for Terrorism Involving Weapons of Mass Destruction, will examine the cost of making such a transition in the status of security workers.

“It would seem that people would be willing to pay a few extra dollars” to pay for better security than that provided by “a $6-an-hour contractor worker,” Wermuth said.

Aside from strengthening on-the-ground security forces, experts advocate fortifying the doors to cockpits and requiring pilots to stay locked inside throughout a flight.

They see a need for the FAA to tighten access to planes, from maintenance workers to baggage handlers. Many of them favor reinvigorating the program to place armed sky marshals aboard domestic fights, rather than sporadically on international flights.

“If the sky marshal program acts as a deterrent, that’s fantastic,” Deeks said.

“But it’s important it is not touted as a fail-safe,” she added. “This is a different kind of hijacker. They are not looking for a ride to Cuba anymore. It’s somebody who is on a suicide mission. So, unfortunately, there is nothing that guarantees safety in that situation.”

Charlie LeBlanc, managing director of Air Security International, said the United States needs to quit compromising its security for other considerations.

In the past, for example, airlines and the government have limited access past security checkpoints, but then relented when concessionaires complained about losing business.

Similarly, the government has waffled on the stringency of security checks because thorough examinations slow down the movement of passengers, baggage and freight.

Gerald Dillingham, an aviation expert for the U.S. General Accounting Office, hopes that Tuesday’s tragedies will lead to sustained interest in better security.

“I hope that a year from now, or two years from now, we are as vigilant as we are now,” he said. “Oftentimes, after these incidents occur, we get a rush of interest, an infusion of money and then things quiet down and the GAO will write reports on the gaps in the system.”

Now, he said, the United States may realize that it faces the sort of chronic terrorist threat that caused Israel and Britain to institute more stringent security.

“It’s time that the U.S. traveling public understand that we are a target for terrorism,” LeBlanc said. “That means we are going to have to sacrifice some of our sacred time.”

People need to think anew about security in a changed world, agreed William Gaillard, spokesman for the International Air Transport Assn. in Geneva. “We’re still living in the post-Lockerbie age when [employees at airports] ask you questions like, ‘Did you pack your own bag?’ [and] ‘Did you leave your bags anywhere?’ ” he said.

“In the age of skilled, well-organized suicide terrorists, it’s a whole new ballgame. We have to enhance prevention. It’s not just that we don’t want the terrorists to board the plane armed; we don’t want them to board.”

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Times staff writers Marjorie Miller and Christopher Reynolds contributed to this story.