Protection at $5.75 an hour

May 1, 2000 12:00 PM, Billie Vincent

Effective screening of airline passengers ensures that dangerous articles are not introduced into controlled areas. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) stated in a recent publication that effective aviation security screening is critical to protecting passengers in air transportation against acts of criminal violence and aircraft piracy.

The FAA has also stated that wages for screeners in the United States currently average $5.75 per hour, and some screeners do not receive fringe benefits.

Who can live on $230 per week before taxes? Not many people, and as a result most screeners work more than one job, which may explain some of the screening oversights, failures, and apparent indifference. How many of us could work 80 hours or more per week and perform at peak levels?

The General Accounting Office (GAO), an arm of the U.S. Congress, just issued a report in March entitled "Slow Progress in Addressing Long-Standing Screener Performance Problems." Discussing various issues, including the high turnover rate among screeners, it states in part: "Two important causes for the screeners' performance problems are the rapid turnover among screeners and human factors issues involved in their work. Turnover exceeds 100 percent a year at most large airports and at one airport has topped 400 percent, leaving few screeners with much experience at the checkpoints."

It is not surprising that it is difficult to get someone to stay on a job that is boring, subjects the employee to public harassment and pays $5.75 per hour.

Similar to many fast-food places, the training requirements for screeners are minimal. Why? U.S. airlines, who are responsible for screening, do not want to pay any more than necessary for the function. Training takes time, and costs money, and the U.S. airlines have always maintained that their purpose is to move people, not to handle security.

The process for implementing new safety procedures is long. First, the Congress proposes legislation regarding aviation, which the President signs into law. The FAA is responsible for implementing the laws through regulations and then enforcing their compliance. The airports and airlines provide the transportation, and the passengers fund the system by purchasing tickets. All this must be done safely. While the FAA does not have the authority to require the airlines to pay screeners a living wage, the agency does have responsibility for setting the training and performance standards for screeners.

Arguably, politics - in the form of power and influence - is a factor in the FAA's reluctance to mandate more extensive screener training. The airlines, directly and through their lobbying association, the Air Transport Association (ATA), wield enormous power over the FAA. When the FAA proposes a new regulation, it must withstand the scrutiny of, among others, the ATA and the airlines. They are usually aggressive adversaries to anything that affects their operating costs and subsequent profits. If the airlines cannot prevail during the Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM) process, they lobby for changes through the political system.

The White House Commission on Aviation Safety and Security, formed as a result of the TWA Flight 800 crash in 1996, partially addressed the problem of screening requirements. The commission recommended development of uniform performance standards for the selection, training, certification and recertification of screening companies and their employees. Congress passed, and on October 9, 1996, the President signed, Public Law 104-264, which directed the FAA "to certify companies providing security screening and to improve the training and testing of security screeners through development of uniform performance standards for providing security screening services."

In January of 2000, more than four years after the enactment of Public Law 104-264, the FAA issued a comprehensive NPRM on Certification of Screening Companies. The FAA had in fact issued an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rule Making (ANPRM) on March 17, 1997, requesting comments on certification of companies providing security screening. ANPRMs are issued when government agencies are unsure of the depth and breadth of a subject or exactly what to do.

Over the past two years the FAA has also issued NPRMs on Part 107: Airport Security, Part 108: Airline Security and Part 109: Indirect Air Carrier Security (Cargo shippers). There are a number of questions raised by the FAA's NPRM on Security Certification, e.g., the division of liability for failure to comply with the regulations between screening companies and the airlines who contract for their services. Questions like these are to be expected in so complicated an undertaking. In any event, the FAA NPRM on Screening Certification is an impressive piece of work and appears to be fully compatible with the other security NPRMs.

Following the Pan American Flight 103 tragedy on December 21, 1988, a previous Presidential Commission on Aviation Security had also recommended that the FAA address this issue. The FAA chose to do so out of the public view by changing a sensitive security document that only airline and security personnel can see. The FAA's action in withholding this rulemaking from public scrutiny was challenged unsuccessfully in U.S. District Court. This allowed the FAA to adopt what the airline lobbying association, the ATA, recommended. The end-result was essentially to reaffirm the already inadequate FAA-mandated screener training requirements. These FAA training standards are less than one-tenth of what most European nations require.

The report issued by the GAO this March compares the screening practices in the United States with those in other countries. "Other countries that we visited such as Belgium, Canada, France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom conduct checkpoint screening differently. Checkpoint operations include routine pat-downs of some passengers; they require that screeners have more extensive qualifications and meet higher training standards. In addition, screeners are paid more and receive benefits. Responsibility for screening lies with airports or the government instead of with air carriers. The five countries we visited had significantly lower screener turnover. One country's screeners even detected over twice as many test objects in a joint screener testing program it conducted with the FAA."

The performance of most long-term screeners is outstanding. Skilled x-ray operators are impressive in their ability to determine what is in a bag or a box. Unfortunately, those that reach this level of expertise are usually lost to better paying, more attractive jobs. To remedy the problem, the FAA and the U.S. airlines are exploring a number of ways to improve screener performance, including Computer Based Training (CBT), particularly X-ray operator image interpretation. Improvements also include Threat Image Projection (TIP) where images of bombs, guns, etc., are electronically inserted into X-ray images of bags and other articles. TIP tests the performance of individual screeners. Unfortunately, few X-ray systems have these features.

The FAA's comprehensive NPRM on Screener Performance will incrementally improve screener performance. But it does not directly address one core issue: the length and depth of training required to produce an effective screener. Instead, the FAA proposes to create a performance-based training environment and to abolish the hourly training requirements. This philosophical change was advocated by The White House Commission on Aviation Safety and Security. The FAA has emphatically stated in its NPRM that it does not intend to certify individual screeners, only companies.

Training in a performance-based environment, such as pilots' training, works well in critical safety areas where the student has a vested personal safety interest. In these instances inattention or indifference by the student may get the student killed. The student understands this, and personal survival, among other motivators, drives his learning desire. Training in a performance-based environment for other disciplines does not always produce the same results nor the same level of motivation to learn. It is particularly true in the screeners field, where the compensation and benefits are meager and can even act as disincentives.

The lack of power or change in philosophy notwithstanding, the FAA must eventually address this issue. If the screening companies are required to train employees longer, their overhead costs will increase. As this will affect all companies similarly, the increased costs will be passed along to the airlines in the screening contracts. As costs to train the employee increase, the contractors and airlines may no longer be able to afford the current high employee turnover rate. These factors should result in higher wages and benefits for screeners to retain their acquired skills. As the turnover rate improves and employees are better compensated, we should see an increase in the skill levels because of the increased training and more experienced employees.

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© 2012 Penton Media Inc.

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