Industry regulators have been too focused on screening passengers at the expense of cargo, and airfreight needs access to new technologies, an aviation expert told the Transport Security Expo in London.
Kee Kras, manager of security and cargo at the Brussels-based Association of European Airlines (AEA), said that while cargo screening currently uses similar technology to the passenger business, such as X-ray screening, the industry had very different challenges to overcome.
“The development of equipment has always excluded cargo; even the Yemen printer cartridge bomb incident in 2010 did not trigger specific cargo screening technology,” she told the gathering.
Equipment development cycles are very slow and the cargo market is not always fully recognised by manufacturers.
The cost of development for new equipment is often high and technical specifications are often inappropriate – for example too-small tunnels on screening equipment designed primarily for passenger baggage.
More international approvals of equipment and harmonisation of regulations is needed.
But at the same time, technology is not the whole solution, Kras added. There is also a need to develop techniques to risk-profile different types of cargo, she said.
However, “the way we do cargo screening has not really changed in 60 years,” Kras concluded. “Customs regulations are old-fashioned. There is more we can do in terms of screening and profiling.”
