Aviation Security Principles

Security and safety are the fundamental priority for civil aviation

The security and safety of civil aviation must be the constant and over-riding
priority for all those involved in providing, or regulating, or servicing, air
transportation, including aviation employees and their unions.

Security can only be achieved through comprehensive and integrated action

Air transport will only ever be as secure as the weakest link in the aviation
chain. Standards and objectives must be consistently and appropriately
applied at every stage and in each activity of air services. The specific
security responsibilities of every component involved in air transport needs to
be explicitly defined. Particular attention must be paid to ensuring that any
commercial relationships between (sub) contract agents do not undermine the
safety and security chain of communication and command. Nor must such
arrangements substitute for legal or regulatory responsibility. Co-ordination
structures at national and airport levels, involving industry, can help with
integration.

The maintenance of a secure and safe air transport system is a fundamental

objective of public policy and a core responsibility of government

Governments and their regulatory agencies must have as their explicit priority
objective the maintenance and promotion of aviation safety and security. All
government aviation economic, industrial and regulatory policies must be
measured against their safety and security impact.

Government and industry must share the costs of ensuring a secure aviation
system

The aviation industry, including airlines, airports and others, must share the
costs involved in maintaining the security of their industry, with such costs
being recoverable in a transparent manner from air transport users such as
passengers and shippers. However, the national security component must be
a function of government, which should not be an economic burden to the
industry or its users.
Only an active and rigorous regulatory and enforcement regime will ensure
the air transport is secure

It is the responsibility of governments to develop appropriate and specific

security regulatory requirements and to rigorously enforce these through
inspection and commensurate sanctions. In developing standards,
governments should actively consult and involve industry, including labour,
but must never be guided by short-term economic policy objectives.

Aviation security standards must be universal to be effective

There must be a global minimum framework of standards if the aviation

system is to be entirely secure. Air transport is only ever as safe as its
weakest link. The International Civil Aviation Organization is the right body to
develop such standards, but these need to be subject to regular review and
their application needs to be subject to oversight systems. Every government
has the responsibility to ensure that air transport providers within or entering
its territory are in compliance. Financial assistance for developing nations is
essential.

Security requirements need to reflect assessed risk

Though there must be a universal minimum baseline of security requirements,

these must be adjusted by governments in accordance with the assessed risk
as may from time to time be judged appropriate in the circumstances. In all
cases, measures above the baseline must be commensurate with the level of
risk. Security considerations should neither be used as a means of justifying
other goals (such as the militarisation of services to achieve economic
objectives), nor should compliance with global norms be an excuse for not
introducing additional measures where these are necessary for security.

Aviation workers and their trade unions are key players in the development
and delivery aviation security

Aviation workers have more to lose than most when security or safety
arrangements fail. Where breaches occur, our lives or livelihoods are on the
line. Governments and industry should see aviation workers and our unions
as partners for security. Employees should be encouraged to actively engage
in security debates rather than be perceived as being risks to be controlled.
Aviation workers, through our unions, have a great deal of front-line expertise
to offer in standard setting and implementation. Very often unions have
exposed the gaps between theory and practice. Unions have a valuable role
in policy-making, and individual workers should have “whistleblower”
protection to make sure that standards are applied in practice. Confidentiality
is obviously important in certain procedural or operational discussions, but in
such cases unions can reliably be treated on an equal basis to other industry
representatives. The ITF should certainly have equal status to operator,
airports and pilots in the International Civil Aviation Organisation and within
regional and national structures.
The delivery of aviation security requires an understanding of the human
factors that can promote or undermine systems and procedures

Aviation security systems have sometimes placed undue emphasis on

technological solutions, without recognising that technology is only as good
as the operator, and that technology is generally aimed at enhancing, rather
than substituting for the operator. While human factors principles are widely
acknowledged in the safety domain, they are less regularly applied in the
security field. Issues such as motivation, fatigue, work rate, working
environment, technology interfaces and employee authority and
communication can all impact on the implementation and application of
security procedures and must be taken account of and regulated where
necessary.

Where aviation workers have security functions, they must have appropriate
authority and support, including through licensing and certification

A great deal remains to be done to ensure that cabin crew, passenger

interface employees and security screeners – amongst others – have the
necessary training, regulatory support and authority to fulfil their functions
comprehensively and coherently. This must require a review of their functions
as safety and security professionals. It is simply not good enough that new
responsibilities are designated without a commensurate adjustment in the
status and scope for action of such employees by their employers and by
regulators. The licensing of cabin crew and certification of other security-
critical functions is the only means by which the competence of personnel can
be assured and independently verified.

Measures to enhance security should not add to risks

There has been some debate about the provisions of firearms in the cockpit
of aircraft. It is the clear view of the ITF that such measures would be counter-
productive and could be an additional risk to flights. Non-lethal means of
control, and mandatory restraint devices, coupled with crew training, are to be
preferred.

Security measures designed to protect core liberties must not themselves

undermine these

While there are circumstances in which pre-employment screening, and in

some cases random checking of aviation employees, might be necessary for
the maintenance of a secure aviation system, such measures should always
be proportionate to an assessed risk, should be solely directed at the
requirement of aviation security, should be subject to consultation with
aviation unions, and should respect fundamental human and civic rights. In no
case should the employer be the agent for the application of such measures,
and in every case, any evaluation or conclusion must be subject to
independent review.
 Adopted at the Section Conference, ITF Congress, Vancouver, 2002

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Background note:

The events of 11 September 2001 have drawn the attention of public and political
opinion to problems with the delivery of aviation security which were already well
recognised by trade unions.

The ITF’s activity, which was centered on improvement in the status and conditions
of security screening personnel, had begun in February 2001 with a project relating
to aviation security screening staff. It was planned, in conjunction with UNI, the
commercial workers’ Global Union, to develop a joint activity with the aim of
improving both aviation and airport security requirements (the ITF role) and
enterprise organisation within multi-industrial security contractors (on which UNI
would lead). Groundwork for this was laid at a meeting in Copenhagen in February
2002 followed by an initial meeting of a joint working group in June 2002. This is
reported on the ITF web site.

In an unrelated activity, the ITF has been in dialogue with scientists with a view to
evaluating the possible adverse health effects of low-level radiation screening
devices. This work will be reported to the ITF Aviation Occupational Health and
Safety Working Group.

The events of 11 September have led governments, regulators and employers to

review their security arrangements. In some cases, this has been positive, for
example, the decision to federalise the United States of America’s aviation security
screening workforce, and the involvement of aviation unions in new policy making,
such as the AFA (USA), on a task group looking at cockpit and cabin security and of
European trade unions in Working Parties looking at the updating of the Europe-wide
security protocols contained in the “ECAC Doc 30”. On the other hand, the new
security environment has also been used to undermine workers and unions, through
– for example – the use of a security rationale to investigate the immigration status of
long-standing employees in the USA, and in the militarisation of airport functions in El
Salvador.

The events of 11 September exposed a serious weakness in global domestic security

regulation and also made clear the need for revised international standards to meet a
new – and until now unpredicted – challenge of suicide bombers using aircraft as
weapons of mass destruction. The International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO)
General Assembly, meeting just weeks after the events, was clearly not in a condition
to immediately establish a new framework, though the topic dominated debate.
Amongst the important actions taken by that Assembly were stopgap measures on
insurance and a commitment to establish a further forum for intergovernmental
debate. The ITF submitted two Working Papers related to aviation security to that
meeting. These emphasised security human factors. These are available at the ITF
web site.

The proposed “ICAO High-level Ministerial Conference on Aviation Security” took

place in Montreal in February 2002, and the ITF delegation submitted a working
paper on security human factors and made a well-received plenary speech on the
subject. Shortly thereafter, the ICAO Council reviewed the global security
requirements, contained in Annex 17 to the Chicago Convention, and incorporated
key elements of the ITF position. This document has been distributed to affiliates
worldwide.

Meanwhile, workers and employers at an International Labour Organization tripartite

meeting in January 2002, looking at the consequences of the events of 11
September, were able to agree, amongst many conclusions that “Governments
should ensure that the fundamental workers’ rights of aviation employees, including
the right to privacy, are protected and respected in cases where such employees are
subject to security vetting due to the sensitive nature of their employment”.

In addition, ICAO has invited the ITF to propose amendments to the ICAO Cabin
Crew Training Manual as well as to the Chicago Convention Annex 6, Chapter 12, on
crew requirements, in the light of the new circumstances. This process is underway.

As part of the ITF’s policy formation, a questionnaire on key elements of security

policy was distributed to affiliates. The Secretariat received an exceptional response
– including from a few non-affiliated organisations- and the results are available to
the Section Conference via a separate document, currently in English only. This has
informed the draft proposed principles.

At the Emergency Section Committee meeting which took place in Washington, DC,
in the United States, in October 2001, it was agreed to develop an ITF Security policy
for consideration by the Section Conference taking place during the ITF’s Congress
in Vancouver. In the event, in view of the diversity of responses to the questionnaire,
which reflect a wide range of differing national circumstances and cultures, the
document presented aims to provide ITF principles rather than a specific ITF policy.

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