John MacDonald: Is this the future of airport security?

What’s the Government’s obsession with speeding things up?  

Today, it’s the queues at airport security that it wants to go faster - with Transport Minister Simeon Brown looking at bringing-in private operators to run airport security instead of the Civil Aviation Authority.   

As far as I’m concerned, if you don’t get through security on time and miss your flight, it’s your own fault. And I do not like the idea of private security outfits taking over.  

Instead, I think the Government should be focused on getting the Civil Aviation Authority to lift its game.  

Now this is done in some airports around the world. I’ve been reading about a scheme in the States. It’s also done in Australia, where private operators pretty much run all aviation security services. And Simeon Brown wants to find out if we should do the same thing here.  

But I don’t think the US and Australia are the best countries for us to mimic on this one because both countries have different standards on a lot of things because they are divided into states. With each state having their own rules and regs.  

We don't, which is why I think we need to stick with a standard operation right through the country, run by a single government agency.  

I went through San Francisco on my way to the UK back in May this year, and I see security services there are run by an outfit called Covenant Aviation Security.  

But I didn’t have any choice, and it doesn’t mean I have to like it.  

My main concerns about private operators taking over here is the risk of inconsistency in training, inconsistency in approach, and the variable quality control.  

I don’t like the fact that private operators don’t have the same access to the type of intel that gets shared between government agencies and not with private organisations and businesses.  

Nor should they, in my view.  

I like knowing that airport security is all part of the big government machine that kicks into gear when things hit the fan. For example - in times of emergency.

I know that private businesses and organisations are critical and also do great things in times of strife, but it’s not the same as a public agency, like the Civil Aviation Authority.

One of the unions that represents aviation security workers doesn’t like what the Government is proposing, either. And, before you get too excited, yes I can see through some of what it’s saying.

Especially, its concern that what the Government is proposing could mean job losses for the people involved. So, of course, a union is going to oppose anything where that’s possible.

But I’m with the National Union of Public Employees (or NUPE) when it says that privatising aviation security would be risky because the pay and conditions offered by private security firms would likely be inferior to what the Civil Aviation provides its workers. And so, you’d get less experienced people running security at the airports and there’d probably be higher staff turnover.

And I’m with the union when it says that allowing the airports to hire their own private aviation providers would lead to inconsistency across the country. Because it would allow airports to cut costs and set their own standards.

At the moment, the same rules and standards apply everywhere because the same outfit does it, and that’s how I think it should stay.

I’m at odds, though, with someone who knows a lot more about this than me. But I’m basing my position on my gut instinct.

Captain David Morgan is Air New Zealand’s chief pilot and operational integrity and safety officer - and he’s backing what the Government is looking at doing.  

He’s saying today: “We are not necessarily interested in delivering aviation security, but we are interested in the enablement of alternative providers for aviation security in New Zealand."

He says third-party aviation security providers are quite common everywhere else.

But even though Air New Zealand’s top pilot is telling me that I’ve got nothing to worry about if the Government does go-ahead with this, I still don’t like it.

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