New security directives for air cargo imposed by the Transportation Security Administration put a heavy burden on air carriers, according to Jack Boisen, vice president of cargo at Continental Airlines.
The directives, issued Nov. 17, set a Dec. 1 deadline for the carriers to submit plans to the agency for implementing random inspections, he said in an interview Friday.
The new measures will take effect right after Christmas.
The carriers, including foreign and domestic all-cargo airlines, will have to conduct the inspections themselves, subject to oversight by the TSA to ensure compliance. There are different requirements for inspections by passenger airlines and all-cargo operators. The carriers will have to bear the cost of the inspections.
Boisen estimated that the carriers will have to inspect approximately 10 percent of all cargo.
The directives are much tougher than the strategic plan for air cargo security, also issued Monday, appeared to indicate. Unlike the strategic plan, the directives were not disclosed to the public.
"It will severely impact the industry. I think the industry was blind-sided by this," said Bob Caton, president of CSTA Cargo Shipping Transportation Analysts. "Carriers are in way ready to implement some of these things."
Boisen said the directives stem from demands to take immediate action such as a bill passed by the House of Representatives earlier this year that would require physcial inspection of all cargo. That bill, sponsored by Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., is unlikely to become law, because it is not supported by the TSA and because an air-cargo security bill passed by the Senate does not include that provision. Markey is not on the conference committee trying to reconcile differences between the two bills.
Boisen and Brian Turmail, a TSA spokesman, cited a recent case in which an individual managed to ship himself as cargo from New York to Texas. "We need to have a process in place so that would-be cargo hijackers are not on board an aircraft," Turmail said. Boisen described that incident as "the idiot in the box."
Turmail also referred to intelligence two weeks ago of possible plans by terrorist to hijack a foreign all-cargo plane operating on a route between two foreign countries.
Boisen, who chairs the cargo committee of the Air Transport Association and is regarded as the top security expert in the U.S. air-cargo industry, declined to estimate the additional cost to carriers of carrying out the inspections. Continental, like most carriers, has a security surcharge of 15 cents a kilo on international shipments. Most domestic carriers have a similar fee on domestic shipments.
Boisen said he hoped Continental could avoid an increase in the surcharge.
Continental plans to develop technology that will ease the burden of compliance, but that will take several weeks, he said. In the meantime, it will have to do that work manually.
The new rules may especially affect express cargo carried by passenger airlines. Continental's Quikpak service for small-package courier shipments, has a 30-minute cut-off time. Boisen said it would be difficult for airlines to comply with the TSA regulations and still maintain a 30-minute deadline.
He added that the situation is further complicated because of additional rules governing air cargo coming from other agencies, including the Food and Drug Adminstration, the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection and the Federal Aviation Adminstration.
The TSA directives issued on Monday are the first of many that the agency will issue over the coming months, Turmail said. The agency expects to issue a comprehensive set of regulations, known as a notice of proposed rule-making, before the end of the year.
TSA did not issue any rules Monday for airfreight forwarders.
The timing of the directives for carriers to conduct random inspections is especially cumbersome because of the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, Boisen said.
Turmail, however, said the carriers have enough time to comply. The cost to them of abiding by the new rules pales in comparison to the cost to the U.S. economy if there should be another terrorist incident, he said.
— William Armbruster
The Journal of Commerce Online
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