New federal screeners are now working at all 429 U.S. airports, where new procedures have cut average passenger wait times at security checkpoints to 10 minutes or less, according to TSA.

TSA also has made progress toward installing new high-tech baggage screening machines in every U.S. airport, and hiring another 20,000 workers to operate them. However, Congress recently extended into 2003 the deadline for implementing the new system at 35 airports that raised concerns about logistics and cost.

At security checkpoints, metal-detector sensitivity has been ratcheted up, and random and for-cause body searches and baggage checks have become commonplace. More armed federal air marshals have been deployed on planes, and cockpit doors have been reinforced. In November President Bush signed the Homeland Security Bill, which includes a provision allowing commercial pilots to carry guns in the cockpit. The bill also calls for a federal study on arming flight attendants with nonlethal weapons such as tasers and stun guns.

People, Not Things
The other approach to airport security—which focuses on “looking at people, rather than things,” as one expert put it—is in place at Boston’s Logan International Airport. In the first program of its kind in a U.S. airport, Massachusetts State Troopers have been trained by Israeli security expert Rafi Ron to “identify hostile intent by observing and interviewing passengers and others in the airport’s terminals, curbs, roads and parking garages,” according to a Massport press release.

“By looking at behavior—and not race or ethnicity—we can help prevent terrorist acts instead of responding to them,” said Massachusetts State Police Major Thomas Robbins. “This program creates an additional layer of security and introduces a screening selection process driven by knowledge and not randomness.” Adds Massport CEO Craig P. Roy: “This program allows us to focus our resources on the small percentage of individuals that need a second look, instead of putting everyone through the ringer.”

Some security experts are far more impressed with the Logan approach than the priorities adopted by TSA and Congress.
“I don’t know why we’re so afraid of the ‘P’ word (profiling),” said Captain Steve Luckey, chairman of the national-security committee of the Air Line Pilots Associa-tion. “We’re talking about human interaction be-tween two people. Every airport worker should be trained as a level-one profiler.”

Under a “quality over quantity” system, said Luckey, a ticket agent, maintenance worker or gate agent would direct suspicious individuals to a second-tier security agent, such as a police officer. If necessary, the level-two profiler would then turn the subject over to a third-tier, highly trained profiler for intensive interviewing.

Technology also plays a role in such a system, particularly security databases that provide ticket agents with background information on travelers. The current airport database system, called CAPS, is now being upgraded, and many experts have called for agencies such as the FBI and CIA to do a better job of sharing their intelligence information with airlines and airports. “We’re going to have a more robust data set,” promised Heather Rosenker, a spokesperson for TSA.

One major benefit of data-driven screening systems is that they are color-blind, said Luckey. “The computer doesn’t know anything about you but your history. It’s profiling based on information, not race.”

Mixed Marks for TSA
Kevin Mitchell, president of the Business Travel Coalition, gives the new TSA high marks for its vigor in implementing security changes and maintaining its distance from the airline industry. But independent experts worry that the agency has been so driven by its Congressional deadlines that its philosophy about security has become somewhat myopic.

In the wake of 9/11, few question the need for better passenger screening at security checkpoints. Mitchell said he hopes that increased TSA training will eliminate the current security “inconsistency from airport to airport, day to day, and concourse to concourse.” TSA also needs to address the issue of security staff and supervisors who abuse their authority, and to make cargo security part of its mandate, he said.

Mitchell said that Baltimore Washington International Airport (BWI) should serve as a model for TSA. “Their supervisors are well-trained and engaged, they have good signs, and there’s a balance between customer service and security,” he said.

Rated on a scale of 1 to 10, Mitchell said he would have given U.S. airports a score of 2 on 9/11. Today, they would score about a 4. “But if all 429 airports operated like BWI, they’d score an 8,” he said.

Baggage screening also has its place in any security regimen, said Christopher Yates, airport security editor for Jane’s Transport. But, he said, it is most effective and efficient when incorporated into the airport’s internal baggage-handling system, as is typical in European airports.

In the United States, however, the rush to compliance has seen enormous computer-assisted tomography (CTX) machines installed in terminal lobbies, with bags fed in by hand. By drawing crowds of people to the machines, said Luckey, this setup presents a “target-rich environment” for potential suicide bombers.

Heather Rosenker, a spokesperson for TSA, denies that this is the case. “In airports where we’re doing 100 percent baggage screening, we’re not seeing lines,” she said. At Dallas’ Love Field, she noted, agents with portable explosive detectors “sniff” travelers’ bags while they wait in line; only bags that set off an alarm are pulled aside for CTX screening.

Convenience vs. Safety
In its first few months of existence, TSA has taken several steps to streamline security procedures, including eliminating routine secondary screening of travelers at boarding gates. Instead, roving screeners will randomly check passengers on different flights and gates in most airports. At major gateway facilities, such as New York’s La Guardia, Boston’s Logan and LAX, screeners will check passengers waiting on check-in lines—which everyone will have to do, since checking in at the gate will be prohibited. TSA also halted the routine questioning of passengers about who packed their bags and whether anyone had given them anything to carry on board, and lifted a ban on parking within 300 feet of airport terminals. Gone, too, is the rather bizarre prohibition on carrying coffee through security checkpoints.

But some experts worry that TSA could be making some of the same kinds of mistakes that led to the Sept. 11 hijackings—namely, sacrificing safety in favor of speed and customer service. “The U.S. is spending an absolute fortune on equipment that is only marginally effective,” said Yates. “The net result will be only marginally improved security, if there’s any improvement at all. What is happening is more of a public-relations exercise than anything else.”

Yates was especially distressed by the decision earlier this year to stop routinely questioning passengers. Yates agreed that those questions had become ritualistic to the point of meaninglessness, but said their elimination was a disturbing sign that TSA has not made human intelligence a security priority. “It’s all a part of the drive to make security customer-friendly,” he said. “But by its nature, security is an invasive business. If a properly trained person was asking the questions, they would only have to look in their eyes to tell if they were lying. To take that check out is ludicrous.”

ALPA’s Luckey said the combination of training and technology would provide better security and customer service by quickly clearing the majority of travelers while putting a more intense spotlight on potential threats.

“We can’t have a system that looks at every good guy to find the bad guys,” he said. “We need a system that gets all of the good people out, then looks at those who are questionable, so that when you get really invasive, you’re only looking at maybe 5 or 10 percent of travelers.”

Such a system could be especially valuable to business travelers, who typically have the kind of predictable travel behaviors that profilers like, said Luckey.

Eventually, he added, road warriors could also be offered the option of undergoing a more detailed background check to enroll in a “trusted traveler” program. Such a program could be modeled after the INSPASS system used by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, which uses biometric handprint identification to allow enrolled travelers to bypass immigration screening.

Basing security on information and observation rather than random checks would also limit such embarrassing moments as when former Vice President Al Gore was recently pulled aside and frisked on both legs of a flight between Washington and Milwaukee.

“We’ve thrown a lot of stuff at the problem; now we need to go back and see if it can become more efficient, effective and user-friendly,” said Luckey.

Surface-to-Air Missiles
First it was bombs in the cargo hold. Then suicidal hijackers, and lunatics with exploding shoes. And now, thanks to Osama and friends, looms the specter of someone using a surface-to-air missile to blow a passenger jet from the sky. The coda to November’s deadly car-bomb attack on an Israeli tourist hotel in Kenya was just what the battered commercial-aviation industry and business travelers didn’t need to hear: As an Arkia Israeli Airlines 757 loaded with tourists was taking off from the Mombasa Airport, the pilot reported hearing a thud and saw two smoke trails rising up toward his plane.

Investigators later found two spent and discarded Russian-made SA-7 surface-to-air missile launch tubes, and al Qaeda claimed responsibility for firing the missiles in an unsuccessful attempt to bring down the airliner. Enhanced airport security measures can help prevent bombs and weapons from being brought aboard aircraft, but experts say there are few quick fixes that would prevent terrorists from trying to use SAMs to shoot down airliners.

Certain El Al jets—those operated in typically high-risk regions—are equipped with antimissile systems similar to those used on military aircraft. But experts estimate that putting such systems on all commercial aircraft could cost $3 million per plane, a staggering cost for an industry already in deep financial trouble. SAMs, such as the SA-7 and the U.S.-made Stinger, are designed to be used by one or two men and are relatively easy to transport.

The fact that both missiles fired in Kenya missed a lumbering airliner demonstrates that SAMs are not that easy to operate effectively. However, experts worry that there are much better missiles available on the black market, including SA-14s, SA-16s, SA-18s, and the Stingers given by the U.S. to the mujahideen fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan back in the 1980s.

Charlie LeBlanc, vice president of operations for Air Security International, a Texas-based consulting firm, says that a successful missile attack on an aircraft in the United States “would take the airline industry and flush it down the toilet.” U.S. lawmakers sounded a similar alarm in the wake of the Kenya attacks, calling on the new Department of Homeland Security to develop defenses against possible SAM attacks. “We’re going to have to have perimeter patrols and other kinds of defenses in place in order to try to prevent these kinds of things from happening and to provide the traveling public with the assurance that they are safe,” said Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) during a recent appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press.

Still, the likelihood of such an attack happening in the United States is comparatively low, LeBlanc contends. “These are small weapons, but they’re not easy to smuggle into the country and keep under the radar of our intelligence services,” he said. More likely, he said, is another attack in Africa, the Middle East or Asia.

Previously, al Qaeda used a missile from the same batch of SA-7s used in Kenya to take a shot at a U.S. military plane in Saudi Arabia. And LeBlanc said that commercial pilots crossing the Democratic Republic of the Congo already fly high enough to avoid possible SAM attacks. “U.S. carriers in the region have taken precautionary measures, and will continue to do so,” he said. It may be small comfort, but LeBlanc estimates that the chance of your airliner being shot down by a SAM is probably far less than the risk of being hijacked. “It should be pretty low on your list of concerns,” he told business travelers.

Hotel Security
For the last 30 years or so, the possibility of hijacking has been an unfortunate reality of air travel. But while air piracy may be one of the risks that business travelers weigh before they step aboard an airplane, comparatively few road warriors consider themselves in the crosshairs of terrorists once they arrive in their hotel room.

In many unsettled regions of the world, in fact, the local Sheraton, Hyatt or Marriott can often serve as an island of security amid chaos.

However, any illusions that terrorists have overlooked hotel guests as potential targets came crashing down on Sept. 11, 2001, when the collapse of the World Trade Center demolished the Marriott hotel that had stood between the north and south towers of the Manhattan landmark.

Thanks to a well-rehearsed emergency evacuation plan, nearly all of the 940 guests registered at the Marriott World Trade Center that day escaped with their lives. But 11 guests died in the attack, along with two Marriott staff members and at least 40 New York City firefighters who were trying to clear the building.

In the months since 9/11, the threat to hotel guests has increased: On May 8, 2002, a car bomb went off next to a Sheraton Hotel van in Karachi, Pakistan, killing 11 French engineers and three other people. And when Kuwaiti police broke up an al Qaeda cell in November, they discovered that the group was plotting to blow up a local hotel that houses U.S. citizens.

Most recently, al Qaeda claimed responsibility for the deadly attack on an Israeli-owned tourist hotel in Kenya. A car laden with explosives smashed into the front of the Paradise Hotel in Mombasa and detonated, killing 16 people and burning the sprawling hotel complex to the ground.

The truth is that threats to overseas hotels are nothing new, says Raymond Ellis, director of the Loss Prevention Management Institute at the Conrad Hilton College of Hotel and Restaurant Management. “We’ve been targeted for years,” said Ellis, widely regarded as the dean of hotel security. “We’ve always felt safe here in ‘Fortress America.’ Now we have to deal with the same things as everyone else.”

For U.S.-based hotels, improving security has quickly become a primary goal, spurred equally by safety, loss-prevention and marketing concerns. “The biggest change since 9/11 is an absolute customer demand for safety and security in hotels,” said Chad Callahan, vice president of loss prevention for Marriott. “It’s something you’ve got to have.”

A recent study by the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration found that most of the 2,123 U.S. hotels studied got high ratings for safety features such as fire sprinklers and smoke detectors, but performed less well when security features such as security cameras and electronic locks were considered.

“Luxury and upscale hotels recorded the highest scores for safety and security, while economy and midprice full-service hotels scored lower than most [market] segments on the safety scale,” said Cornell professor Cathy
Enz, co-author of the study. “In general, the newer the hotel, the higher its safety and security scores.” The exception was luxury hotels, which usually are well-equipped regardless of age.

Enz noted that airport hotels tend to have the best safety and security equipment. But hotel location is something of a double-edged sword where terrorism is concerned, industry experts noted. An upscale business hotel in Manhattan may invest far more heavily in security than a motor lodge in Wisconsin, for example, but it’s also far more likely to be a terrorism target.

Most hotel managers who responded to the Cornell study said that they had made few changes in security directly in reaction to 9/11. But it’s clear that business hotels in cities such as New York and Washington are taking the threat of terrorism very seriously.

Marriott, long considered an industry leader in the area of security, has turned its vigilance up a notch. “We’ve elevated our threat condition to yellow in North America, and there is a group of hotels that have been elevated even further, based on their location and clientele,” said Callahan. Hotels that are at the top of Marriott’s three-tiered threat-assessment system include the New York Marriott Marquis and the Detroit Marriott Renaissance Center.

Hotel officials are reluctant to go into great detail about the steps they are taking to protect guests from terrorists. But some measures are apparent to savvy travelers, such as check-in receptionists taking a photocopy of a first-time guest’s ID, hotels refusing to check bags for nonguests and increased use of surveillance cameras.

If you loiter in the lobby of a big-city hotel these days, chances are that a hotel staff member will approach you to ask your business. Access to guest floors also is more likely to be restricted, either by security personnel or by elevators that require a room key to operate.

Other changes are less apparent. “We’ve put everyone into security teams, from housekeeping to the front desk,” said Jimmy Chin, director of security at New York’s Peninsula Hotel. Housekeepers, for example, have been instructed to be on the lookout for bags containing wires, flight manuals and other suspicious materials when cleaning rooms.

Because the 9/11 terrorists shaved off their body hair in a pre-attack ritual, housekeepers at the Peninsula also have been told to report to supervisors if a guest requests a large quantity of shaving cream or razors. Doormen have been instructed to immediately report suspicious packages left outside. And registration agents have been trained to note requests for rooms that overlook or adjoin potential terrorism targets.

“The biggest thing we’re doing differently is we want to have a better idea of who our guests are,” said William McShane, director of security for Manhattan East Hotels and chair of the American Society of Industrial Security’s hospitality-industry committee. Guests who make last-minute reservations, want to pay with cash, have no credit history or give a post office box as an address are among those who will receive added scrutiny, McShane said.

For staff at many big-city business hotels, training to deal with conventional, nuclear, chemical or biological attacks has become as much a part of their job as fire drills. Ellis points out that training and procedures instituted after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing probably saved the lives of many Marriott hotel guests on 9/11.

Within minutes of the first plane hitting, the hotel staff had gathered at the concierge desk, as they had been trained to do. Using a copy of the guest registry, employees swiftly moved through the hotel to evacuate guests. Later, they assisted perhaps 1,000 World Trade Center employees in fleeing the destruction via the hotel lobby before the twin towers collapsed. “That kind of response showed that this was an organization that was prepared,” said Ellis.

Still, there may be little a hotel can do to prevent a suicide attack, said Ellis. “You’re dealing with people where self-preservation is the last thing on their mind,” he said. “I don’t know how you protect against that.”

A car-bomb attack, such as the one launched against the U.S. Marines in Lebanon in 1983 and the 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma City Federal Building, is what keeps many hotel security experts up at night. “The real damage that could be done to a building is really a vehicle bomb, not a suicide bomber or a luggage bomb,” notes Callahan.

Some hotels now examine the bottom of cars for bombs; post-9/11, some are also asking to look in the trunk of guest cars or requiring that they be parked by valets.

Peter Tarlow, Ph.D., a security expert with Tourism and More in College Station, Texas, said that concrete barriers—perhaps tastefully screened by shrubbery—could be worked into the design of new or existing hotels to keep cars and trucks away from buildings, with guests required to check in at a remote location. Designers also might want to rethink putting parking garages under buildings, he said.

Metal detectors and baggage screening also may have a role to play in the future of hotel security. But industry experts say that U.S. hotel guests, while tolerant of some added security changes, may not be ready to submit to extensive background checks, or to see armed guards in hotel lobbies.

“I could design the safest hotel in the world, but nobody would want to stay there,” said Marriott’s Callahan. “The real issue is knowing where the line is between customer convenience and security.”