Cathay CEO calls for one-stop aviation security
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Cathay Pacific Chief Executive Officer, Tony Tyler, has called on the aviation industry to work towards a more efficient and harmonised process of aviation security.
In a speech today at the International Aviation Security Conference 2009, held at the
Regal Airport Hotel at Hong Kong International Airport, Tyler said that Cathay
Pacific is strongly supportive of a move, led by the International Air Transport
Association (IATA) and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), to accelerate the harmonisation of security standards through one-stop security.
“The airline industry has been trying to achieve this since 1997 but progress has been painfully slow and sporadic,” Tyler said. “That’s why we support and endorse the call from IATA for ICAO and its aviation security panel to provide the leadership to make one-stop security a global reality.”
Tyler added; “I have lost count of the number of times customers have complained to me about the ambiguities and lack of consistency they encounter in security requirements in the world’s airports. Some airports require you to take out your laptop, others don’t; some make you remove your shoes, others don’t; some want you to take off your belt; others don’t. What kind of message does that send to passengers?”
Tyler went of to cite IATA’s Director-General and CEO, Giovanni Bisignani, who recently asked an audience in New York, “where is the data that shows that a shampoo bottle is a greater risk than a belt buckle? There is none. Yet we spend millions to limit carry-on liquids.”
“There are solutions waiting out there to iron out all the anomalies. We must find them and implement them,” Tyler concluded.
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