Airport Business - 20

SECURITY MATTERS
AUTHOR Marc Grynberg

THE MOST COMMON AIRPORT SECURITY
CHALLENGES ARE MANAGEABLE:

Here's How

Simplify and manage your operations to optimize asset protection.
THE RESPONSIBILITY that U.S. airport authorities
and their security services have is immense. In 2018
alone, 19,622 public and private airports handled
over 16,122,000 flights and move - on average -
over 44 million pounds of freight annually.
This doesn't even account for the
duty airports have for keeping passengers
safe and ensuring they reach their
destinations on time; the average daily
Security teams can always improve their
processes but need access to
up-to-the-minute monitoring
and data to adjust how they
respond to both passenger
volume and flow.
TRACKFORCE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
MARC GRYNBERG

Marc Grynberg, vice president of
product, Trackforce.

passenger volume was over 2.7 million
in that same year, a total of 1,018,339,442
passengers for the year.
Asset protection and efficiency are
the two biggest challenges for the airport
industry including commercial service
and all other airport categories.
Airport professionals have to
carefully balance passenger
expectations of timeliness and
comfort with a large number
of potential security risks and
compliancy requirements.
In airports across the U.S.,
security officers have a wide
range of duties on both the
airside and landside of the
airport. They are responsible
for passenger, baggage and
cargo screening, perimeter fence
checks, patrolling retail sections of
the airport, enforcing checkpoints,
and carrying out emergency plans
in the case of fire, natural disaster, or
civil threat. Despite all of their job tasks,
they need to ensure that they comply
with relevant codes and meet standards
of excellence and mitigate risks while
helping to keep supply and value chains
moving seamlessly and ensuring tight
deadlines are met the first time.
Airports in the U.S. are enlisting the
resources of private security companies

20 \ AIRPORTBUSINESS / NOVEMBER 2019

to help them get the job done, specifically
as it relates to passenger screening. The
TSA has implemented the Screening
Partnership Program, which "contracts
security screening services at commercial
airports to qualified private companies.
These companies run screening
operations under federal oversight and
must comply with all TSA security
screening procedures. These partnerships
give private firms more opportunities
to assist today's airport security teams
meet the everyday security and service
challenges facing them.

Common Airport
Security Challenges
With so many moving parts, a large
volume of people and cargo, and the
need to ensure that a vast operations area
meets both security and quality standards,
it's necessary to identify the challenges
that are most difficult for security teams
to overcome. While each airport will
have its own unique obstacles, all share
a combination of the following:

1

THERE MUST BE ZERO
MARGINS FOR ERROR.
For both safety and logistical reasons,
standards must be met during each
and every security shift. The lack of
f lexibility with no room for failure is
something that is top of mind for today's
private security teams. If even one team
member falls behind, it can have a ripple
effect on the entire airport operation or
result in serious sanction/punishment
from federal or local authorities.
Airport Business

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