Governments must foot the bill for meeting aviation security threats which have cost global airlines and their passengers a whopping $7.4 billion last year, the IATA has said.
“Governments are obliged to foot the bill for security threats which are national challenges in the same manner as they would do in any other sector,” the International Air Transport Association said in its latest report titled ‘The Impact of September 11 2001 on Aviation’
Airlines and air travellers “currently pay a security bill that had ballooned to $7.4 billion by 2010”, IATA CEO and Director General Antony Tyler said in the report.
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Besides suggesting that governments should foot the bill on aviation security, he listed out four more “major lessons in security“.
Mr. Tyler said that governments must also coordinate the development and deployment of security measures to ensure harmonised global standards and eliminate overlapping and redundant requirements among nations.
Passengers should play an important role in helping keep air travel safe, he said, adding that vigilance and cooperation with authorities were crucial.
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Asking world governments to embrace a risk-based approach to security screening, he said “We must accept that there is no such thing as 100 per cent risk-free security. Governments must focus on the probable and not all that is possible and avoid policies driven by knee-jerk reactions.”
Observing that doubts were expressed at the resilience of the airline industry, Mr. Tyler said a decade after the event, there can be no doubt about it because three years after the 9/11 terror attacks, revenues and traffic surpassed 2000 levels, and by 2006, aviation returned to profitability, even though it was a weak 1.1 per cent margin.
In the interim, airlines dealt with SARS, additional terrorist attempts, wars and rising oil prices, he said.
IATA expected airline revenues of $598 billion this calendar year, which is nearly twice the $307 billion of 2001. Airlines were also expected to carry 2.8 billion passengers and 48 million tonnes of cargo.
“That’s a billion more people flying and 16 million more tonnes of cargo than in 2001,” Mr. Tyler said.
Tracing the ups and downs of the aviation industry post-9/11, the IATA chief said, “While it is difficult to isolate the impact of the events of 2001, we can say that they were a part of a chain of events that cost the industry three years of growth. The 2008 global financial crisis cost another two years of growth.”
He said it took three years for the industry to recover the $22 billion revenue drop of six per cent between 2000 and 2001. When the global financial crisis struck in 2008, 2009 revenues fell by 14 per cent, which was largely recovered in the following year when industry revenues rose and airlines posted an $18 billion profit.
“Clearly the restructuring of the decade has left airlines leaner and more resilient in the face of crisis”.