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LONDON - Tighter security checks at Britain's airports have created delays and long queues that could make waiting passengers targets for attack, lawmakers said today.
Parliament's Transport Committee said an attack on Glasgow airport last month, when a car was rammed into the entrance and set alight as part of a suspected al Qaeda plot, showed how passengers queuing in terminals could be a target.
New rules brought in last year after police warned of a suspected plot to blow up transatlantic flights using liquid explosives have made security checks "lengthy, intrusive and frustrating", the lawmakers said in a report.
The changes sparked chaos on both sides of the Atlantic, with hundreds of flights cancelled, long delays and widespread confusion over hand luggage rules.
"It is clear that heightened security checks at airports could create potential new targets for terrorists. Queues of hundreds of passengers in cramped spaces constitute a real hazard," the committee said.
"Moving passengers more swiftly through to airside will, in itself, reduce the threat to the travelling public," it said. "Speeding up check-in times and reducing the security queue should be a priority for airports and airlines."
In evidence to the committee, Ian Hutcheson, security chief at airport operator BAA, said some passengers were confused by the rules and others tried to ignore them.
After the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States and the Lockerbie plane bombing in 1988, passengers complied with tighter security measures, he added.
But the reasons for the tighter rules brought in last August quickly faded from people's memories, he said.
"X-ray rage" among irate passengers stuck at security checks had led to a rise in assaults on staff, the lawmakers heard.
The committee said it was shocked by the number of people breaking the ban on carrying liquids through security checks and said the government was too relaxed about the breaches.
The legislators accepted that tighter security was fundamental to passengers' safety. However, they urged the government to do more to help airports cope.
For example, ministers could give airport bosses more information when changes are planned, or help with emergency staffing and funding.
Security was tightened at Britain's airports after the Glasgow attack and the discovery of two car bombs in central London hours earlier.
Soldiers and tanks were deployed at Heathrow Airport in 2003 over what one police source described as a threatened al Qaeda rocket attack.
- REUTERS
