World: ACI opposes new airport checkpoints

The UN's ICAO should avoid creating new checkpoints outside airport terminals as it draws up guidelines to improve security in the wake of recent attacks, the head of Airports Council International said. Angela Gittens, director general of the global airport trade group, said she did not want external checkpoints, which are being debated as a way to deter attacks on airports, to become part of a proposed global security standard for public areas because the additional lineup could create a new target. The ICAO last week discussed creating a new standard that could push countries to come up with security rules for public sections of airports. Security in land-side areas is run by a patchwork of local and state authorities, depending on the country. "Most airports were not built to have people congregate at doors," Gittens said. "And every time you stop people, you're interfering with what airports were supposed to be doing. You're trapping people in a line where if something did happen these people would not be able to scatter." ICAO sets standards that its 191 member states typically adopt as regulatory requirements. While global security guidelines already exist for airside areas, the ICAO has not set standards for public sections of airports. Even before a March attack on a Brussels airport, the agency was already discussing ways to improve security after a Metrojet plane crashed in Egypt last year.<br/>