New Zealand's airport security no push-over

By KAREN HOLDOM

Step off a plane at many of the world's major airports and those prowling, scowling, heavily armed guards in military uniforms make it clear you've entered a high-security area.

By comparison, arriving at Auckland International Airport is more akin to checking in at a holiday camp with security folk wandering around in cheerful blue uniforms, armed only with walkie-talkies.

But don't underestimate them. New Zealand's Aviation Security Service (Avsec) has been officially recognised as being among the best of its kind in the world, winning top accolades in the Asia-Pacific region's inaugural security sectors excellence awards in May.

What's more, a ground-breaking court case in South Auckland earlier this month has sent a warning to terrorists everywhere that Avsec is not to be trifled with.

A small crowd of powder-blue uniforms filed into the Otahuhu District Court to give evidence against one Hayim Nachum, 42, a Wellington property developer, who joked: "My friend has a bomb in his bag," to a flight attendant as he boarded a flight to Wellington.

Nachum, whose "joke" cost him $1750, is thought to be the first person charged under a section of the Civil Aviation Act making it a crime to knowingly provide false information relating to the safety of an aircraft.

Is there really enough of a terrorist threat in New Zealand to justify this level of vigilance?

Absolutely, says the man in charge at Auckland, Don Alexander, Avsec's regional manager, north.

"That's the business we are in, to prevent bombs going on aeroplanes, so we look very seriously upon people who approach any organisation at the airport and say: 'I've got a bomb'."

He readily concedes terrorist activity in New Zealand is "pretty low" but "You hop on an aeroplane in Auckland and in a few short hours you can be in a country whose threat level is a lot higher than ours. You can be in US territory in a fairly short space of time and everyone threatens the US."

In fact, most of the efforts by New Zealand's aviation security are aimed at preventing terrorist attacks against Americans.

Alexander explains: "While the average New Zealander is pretty laid back United States aircraft operate out of New Zealand so if you've got some hot-blooded person who has an axe to grind against the States, and they say, 'Hey, they don't screen United Airlines out of Auckland' they'll fly to Auckland, take the artillery on board and deal to the USA."

New Zealand's Aviation Security Service is a state-owned enterprise, funded through airport departure tax (Avsec gets $4 less GST from each $22 tax paid at Auckland Airport), its duties laid down under the Civil Aviation Act.

ts job is to prevent passengers taking anything on board an aircraft which could be used to hijack the plane or commit any other serious crime. This is done by screening passengers and baggage as well as ensuring the area between passenger screening and the aircraft is secure - in other words you can't get your mate to pass you a bomb over the fence.

Alexander says Avsec's successes in the security sector awards (including outstanding Aviation Security Organisation and Outstanding Aviation Security Officer for its general manager Mark Everitt) come down to its efforts to constantly benchmark its performance against others in the world, particularly Singapore's Changi Airport security people who have a reputation for being very good at their job.

Avsec was the first organisation of its kind to get ISO certification in 1993 and Alexander says there are three critical factors to doing the job effectively: intelligence, technology and human resources.

Intelligence comes from sources around the world, especially the "world police" in this field, America's Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Alexander will describe the nature of this intelligence only in broad terms: keeping up to date with other security organisations as well as the movements of terrorist groups and "other people considered a threat to aviation."

The technology side is about keeping up with the latest in x-ray machines, metal-detectors and explosives-detectors.

"Our x-ray machines are as good as anywhere in the world and our metal detectors are top class," says Alexander.

The equipment is so good, he says, that the nastiest-looking character can go through the system at Auckland International Airport and if he doesn't activate the metal detector and the x-ray machine shows his bag is clear "you can quite happily give him back his bag and send him on his way and say he was a mean-looking son of a gun but he wasn't carrying anything that he could do any harm with."

Human resources is the area in which Avsec takes the most pride. While other nations pay "screeners" a pittance to sit in front of an x-ray machine and stare at bags all day, Avsec sees that as far too risky.

"I defy anybody to sit there and watch every bag go through an x-ray machine [without getting distracted] for eight hours," says Alexander.

Instead, screening is one of a range of tasks security staff do in a constant rota system to keep them motivated and alert.

Each task, from greeting passengers and putting bags on the conveyer belt, to patrolling the perimeter fences, manning the gate-house and running a team of explosive-detecting dogs, is seen as equally important and staff are trained in all of them.

"Our staff are law-enforcement officers as far as we are concerned. They do a variety of tasks and they are well paid."

So why is no effort made to screen passengers or bags on domestic flights in New Zealand - a question also posed by Nachum in his defence in the bomb-joke court case.

The Civil Aviation Authority, which advises parliament on these matters, doesn't regard screening of baggage on domestic flights as necessary, mainly because New Zealand has a low hijacking risk because of our geographical isolation.

"You're not going to leap on a BA146 aircraft at Wellington and say, 'I want to go to Havana or Indonesia or even Australia'," says Alexander, "because you are going to have to swim part of the way."

But what's to stop someone with a death-wish or just hellbent on creating chaos from taking a bomb on a flight?

"It's an extreme example," he says, reluctantly admitting that it would probably take a major crime on board a domestic flight before passenger and bag screening would be introduced.

As for the fact his officers remain unarmed, Alexander points out that most airports with armed security guards have a history of hijacking. "The police and the Army are the two agencies in this country that resolve matters with firearms if need be but we are not an armed service."