Air cargo security vulnerable internationally

The U.S. is struggling to improve screening procedures for air cargo transported domestically and around the world, but the makeup and amount of cargo on planes makes it difficult -- some say impossible -- to check every package.

All cargo leaving Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport by plane -- whether it is on a passenger or all-cargo aircraft -- is inspected, said Harold Hagans, president of Atlanta Customs Brokers and chairman of the board for the Atlanta Air Cargo Association.

Leaving Atlanta, cargo is "checked and double-checked, I can assure you," Hagans said.

But that's not the case for what comes in.

"They tend to be lagging behind our standards," he said of cargo coming from developing countries.

The Transportation Security Administration may seek to improve the existing patchwork system of air cargo security screening in the wake of the discovery overseas of Friday of two explosive devices bound for FedEx and UPS air cargo shipments. It could have an impact in Atlanta: Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport -- the world’s busiest passenger airport -- is the 11th busiest U.S. airport for cargo traffic, according to the Air Transport Association, and two of the nation's top five carriers of air cargo -- UPS and Delta -- are based here.

Because products  from lobsters to cut flowers and some electronic devices need to move quickly, the impact of slowed transport would be huge, Hagans said.

"The economic structure of the U.S. hinges on air cargo, especially now," he said. "Everything is time-sensitive. It's absolutely important to the economy, it absolutely is."

Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed is actively trying to attract more air cargo traffic at Hartsfield-Jackson as a way to drive job growth.

When cargo coming into Atlanta comes in to the airport, it is in the belly of passenger planes such as Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines and through cargo carriers like UPS and FedEx.  Some airlines like AirTran Airways do not carry any cargo on their jets.

The TSA required, as of Aug. 1, that 100 percent of cargo shipped on passenger planes be checked. All cargo on domestic passenger flights is now screened with X-ray systems, explosive detection systems, explosives trace detection, canine searches, physical searches and other approved methods. But it is difficult to secure cargo from international passenger flights. Currently more than 75 percent of all required screening is being done, according to a September report by the Department of Homeland Security.

The TSA, though, does not have strict requirements for all-cargo planes, and a much smaller percentage of that cargo is screened, said Richard Bloom, director of terrorism, espionage and intelligence studies at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Arizona.

In part, that is because a push was made to secure passenger airlines first. It's also because the variety and size of objects that are shipped on all-cargo flights mean it is harder to tell when something is out of place, he said.

"There are so many opportunities for things to go wrong," he said. "One-hundred percent cargo security is just not possible."

Known shippers, of which there are about 1.4 million according to the TSA, have specific security requirements they must follow. A Certified Cargo Screening Program also seeks to screen more packages outside the airport, and allows cargo to be checked before being delivered to an air carrier.

Since August, U.S. aviation officials have been pressing the European Union to require X-raying every package placed on passenger planes, but they have met resistance because of the cost and logistics involved in screening such a huge amount of material, aviation safety consultant Chris Yates said. X-ray machines are not an effective tool to screen bulk cargo because of the large size and number of the items that need to be inspected, said Philip Baum, editor of Aviation Security International.

To work around that, companies like UPS, FedEx, DHL and others use several layers of security, Bloom said.

Don Ratliff, regent's and UPS professor of logistics at Georgia Tech, said he does not think there should be any great change in the way air cargo is screened. It is expensive, he said, and takes a long time, lessening the benefits of shipping by air.

He said that it is not easy to tell what doesn't belong in a piece of complicated equipment -- unlike a knife or a gun spotted in someone's screened luggage at the airport.

"There are a bazillion kinds of cargo you can have," he said.

To counter that, the TSA forbids cargo from unknown shippers from being carried on passenger planes.

Bloom said putting specific requirements on the amount of security screening that should be done or how it should be conducted would be counter-productive as technology improves and regulations become outdated.