While North America’s airports groan under the weight of another sea-change in security protocols, one word keeps popping out of the mouths of experts: Israelification.
That is, how can we make our airports more like Israel’s, which deal with far greater terror threats with far less inconvenience.
“It is mind boggling for us Israelis to look at what happens in North America, because we went through this 50 years ago,” said Rafi Sela, the president of AR Challenges, a global transportation security consultancy. He has worked with the RCMP, the U.S. Navy Seals and airports around the world.
“Israelis, unlike Canadians and Americans, don’t take s— from anybody. When the security agency in Israel (the ISA) started to tighten security and we had to wait in line for – not for hours – but 30 or 40 minutes, all hell broke loose here. We said, `We’re not going to do this. You’re going to find a way that will take care of security without touching the efficiency of the airport.'”
Despite facing dozens of potential threats each day, the security set-up at Israel’s largest hub, Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion International Airport, has not been breached since 2002, when a passenger mistakenly carried a handgun onto a flight. How do they manage that?
Read the whole thing: What Israel can teach us about security: At Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv, screening is done in 30 minutes. The key? Look passengers in the eye
three comments...
Their system appears to rely heavily on the independent judgement of security personnel and airline staff. Given the intelligence of your average TSA employee, I am not sure that type of system would work so well here.
So maybe step one in improving airport security is improving US public education.
This might take a while.
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