general

A 7-year-old girl who ran away from her parents managed to take a train to Geneva airport and board a plane despite having no ticket. The girl gave her parents the slip near Geneva's central railway station Sunday, then took the one-stop ride to the airport. Her parents rang the Swiss police, who tracked her progress through the airport on security videos, an airport spokesman said. She went through the security gate and managed to pass herself off as the child of adults around her, before using her small stature to slip through the departure gate without being noticed and boarding a plane, the airport said. The airport said it would tighten safety rules and boarding procedures as a result of what it called the "highly regrettable incident". "This should never have happened," the spokesman said. <br/>

Govts need to cooperate more closely with the industry when developing aviation security measures, following a year where various countries implemented new security rules unilaterally. Security measures should be risk-based, outcome-focused and proportionate to the probable threat, and not about the elimination of every conceivable risk, says Andrew Herdman, DG of the Association of Asia Pacific. "Unilateral actions taken by individual govts reacting to emerging threats may result in unnecessary disruption or lead to unintended safety consequences," he adds. The issue was also raised by IATA DG Alexandre de Juniac last week. He calls it "concerning and disturbing" that countries such as the US, UK and China have announced unilateral measures without any prior consultation with the industry. <br/>