The Delta stowaway spotlights a lapse in aviation security that still hasn’t been solved

The case of the woman who dodged TSA checkpoints and a US airline’s boarding protocols to hop on a flight to Paris is raising alarms about a wider aviation security problem. Multiple similar breaches of security have occurred within air travel, including some this year, but they often go undocumented. During one of the busiest travel periods on record for the Transportation Security Administration, Svetlana Dali, 57, slipped past airport security and made her way onto a flight over Thanksgiving from New York to Paris, making it most of the way there before being detected. Her case made international headlines, but stowaways are not as uncommon as travelers may think. This example, and many others over the years, have sounded alarms to public officials on protocols and safety. Airlines, too, have developed security plans to ensure things go according to plan. But even then, people can slip through. Although the reported cases are few, they happen all over the world, according to Alexandra James, an analysis output manager at Osprey Flight Solutions, which analyzes security risks in the aviation sector. She has written a case study on stowaway situations. James said she draws information from open-sourced information, such as media reports. “I hesitate to say [this happens] a lot, but I wouldn’t hesitate to acknowledge it as a security weakness,” James said.<br/>