S ECURITY RIORITIES Setting the Bar for ’09 · complex, high-performance airliners into every region of the world, trans- ... or near regulatory limits for flight time and duty

18 Air Line Pilot March 2009

ALPA members—all professional airline flightcrew members—are confident, decisive, respon-

sible, and courageous leaders. They fly complex, high-performance airliners into every region of the world, trans-porting millions of passengers and thousands of tons of cargo safely every day. The professionalism of airline pilots was evidenced last month in New York in what has been hailed as “the miracle on the Hudson.”

But ALPA members do more—much more.

They confidently cham pion airline pilots’ top safety issues at local, nation al, and international levels:• Our in-house training, combined with the breadth of experience repre-sented by the ALPA membership, means an ALPA pilot provides what you can’t find from any representative of any other organization—a view of safety and security issues through the eyes of line pilots and achievable solutions in the real world.• We work with airlines, manufacturers, airports, government agencies, interna-tional regulatory bodies, and other aviation stakeholders.• We participate in Aviation Rulemaking Committees and other government/industry standard-setting groups, testifying on Capitol Hill and Canada’s Parliament Hill.• We spearhead initiatives with the International Federation of Air Line Pilots Associations and the International Civil Aviation Organization, which is

the aviation arm of the United Nations.Long hailed as the conscience of

the airline industry, ALPA members continuously dedicate themselves to improving your safety and security throughout the U.S. and Canadian national airspace systems and, in fact, the rest of the world.

ALPA’s reputation in the airline industry and its strength as a labor union give pilots the foundation and confidence• to make sound decisions under pressure,• to say, “No, I will not take this flight—it’s not safe,” and exercise their captain’s authority when it’s needed the most, and • to stand shoulder-to-shoulder, speaking with one voice, demonstrat-ing with words and actions that ALPA members epitomize leadership every day, on every flight.

In keeping with that spirit of pas-sionate involvement and service to our members and the traveling public, the purpose of our media briefing today is to present our aviation safety and security priorities for 2009.

Pilot fatigueA couple of years ago, we surveyed our members and of those who responded, 62.8 percent of our mem-bers reported that they or pilots they flew with were fatigued at the end of one or more of their trips during the previous four-month period.

No industry was hit harder by the 9/11 terrorist attacks than the U.S. airline industry. To keep our airlines in business, we pilots either voluntarily made major contract concessions or had them forced on us by bankruptcy court judges. These concessions resulted in many of our members working at or near regulatory limits for flight time and duty time. We’re talking about 16-hour duty days [17 hours in Canada]

for many domestic airline pilots—even longer with some ultra-long-range in-ternational flights. And remember, too, that the duty day of an airline pilot can be what most people would consider “all night long.”

Scientists who study fatigue and sleep deprivation have documented such sobering facts as these:• being awake for 17 hours or longer impairs mental alertness and cogni-tion as much as having a blood alcohol level of 0.05 percent, which is illegal to fly, • building up a cumulative sleep deficit over just a few days requires multiple nights of adequate sleep to effect a full recovery, and • tired people—even highly trained pilots—may not be good judges of just how fatigued they are.

But the current FAA regulations regarding maximum flight time, maximum duty time, and minimum required rest have not been changed significantly since before the airline

Setting the Bar for ’09Pilot fatigue, aviation safety reporting programs, and enhanced crewmember screening are among the top issues on ALPA’s list Remarks by ALPA’s president, Capt. John Prater

SAFETY SECURITY PRIORITIES

A reporter from Cox television interviews Capt. Prater.

WIL

LIA

M A

. FO

RD

March 2009 Air Line Pilot 19

jet age began in the late 1950s. In fact, some airliners being flown

now can fly for more than 20 hours without refueling. ALPA has worked closely with the airline industry and the FAA to develop new operations specifications for these ultra-long-range, or ULR, operations. But several airlines with ULR flights have sued the FAA to block implementation of this new ops spec.

So what do we want? To address the problem of pilot

fatigue, ALPA advocates for adequate rest periods, reasonable duty periods, and special provisions for flying on what we call “the back side of the clock” (i.e., between midnight and 6 a.m., when the human body most needs sleep) and for crossing multiple time zones. Any regulations developed to deal with fatigue should • be based on science,

• apply to all sizes of aircraft operators, and• address passenger and all-cargo airlines equally.

Fatigue risk management systems should complement, not be used as a

substitute for, a regulatory framework for flight- and duty-time limits and minimum rest periods.

ALPA also is urging Congress to pass the FAA reauthorization legislation, which, among other critical actions to improve aviation safety, directs the FAA to arrange for a study on pilot fatigue. The study would be conducted by the National Academy of Sciences and include an examination of recommen-dations made by the NTSB and NASA. I will testify before the House Aviation Subcommittee on this critical issue later this month.

Pilot input criticalIn this and so many other airline safety and security issues, line pilot involvement is critically important. As the frontline professionals who make the U.S. and Canadian airline industry work every day and every night of the year, we’re the ones who know what works and what doesn’t, and what the unintended consequences of new technology and proposed changes to procedures might be before they occur, and certainly as soon as they happen. We’re the ones with the view through the forward-looking win-dows. When in doubt, ask us.

BOD Strategic Priority MandatesALPA’s Board of Directors mandated a number of strategic priorities during its historic October 2008 meeting. Among those priorities were recommendations from Delegate Committees 3 and 5.

Specifically:• Delegate Committee 3: To promote and implement those ALPA strategic priorities that advance and protect our profession in One Level of Safety, One Level of Security, and One Level of Flight Time Duty Time.• Delegate Committee 5: ALPA must elevate its communications efforts to the news media, on Capitol Hill, Parliament Hill, and in industry forums, and must regularly communicate to the membership regarding these activities.… ALPA must continue to be the authoritative voice of the piloting profession.

ALPA on Fatigue: It’s Pilot Enemy No. 1Want to know more about ALPA’s position on various aspects of pilot fatigue, flight-time and duty-time limitations, and minimum rest requirements?

Visit the ALPA members-only website, Crewroom.alpa.org, and click on the box near the top of the page labeled “Committees.” Click on “Flight

Time/Duty Time.” Select from • “Principles,” which includes ALPA flight-time/ duty-time policy, as published in the ALPA Administrative Manual, • “Guide to FT/DT Limitations,” a highly useful guide to dealing with everyday situa-tions that occur in flying the line that you can download in a 49-page Jeppesen format,• “Fatigue Resources,” • “Library,” or• “International.”

Whether you’re looking for general principles or hard numbers (e.g., ALPA’s specific goals for annual, quarterly, monthly, weekly, and daily block-time and duty-time limits, which vary by number of flightcrew members, number of trip segments, window of circadian low [2–6 a.m.], aircraft category, and more), it’s all there, waiting for you.


FOQA and ASAPOverarching all of our aviation safety concerns, we feel strongly that volun-tary, nonpunitive safety reporting systems—notably Flight Operations Quality Assurance, or FOQA, and Aviation Safety Action Programs, or

Four for SafetyALPA’s top pilot safety activist lays out the Association’s “Big Four” safety concerns for 2009 at the ALPA news media briefingRemarks by Capt. Rory Kay ALPA Executive Air Safety Chairman


ALPA on FOQA and ASAP: Every Airline Should Have ’emA cornerstone of proactive aviation safety efforts is “data mining”—and pilots’ reports of real-life experiences are the nuggets that aviation safety professionals in the federal government, airline management, academia, and ALPA are eager to mine.

The two greatest sources of accurate, detailed information about what really happens on the line are Flight Operations Quality Assurance (FOQA) and Aviation Safety Action Programs (ASAP). FOQA involves collecting objective data from a quick-access digital data recorder of many airplanes during regular line operations, then examining aggregate data on a number of different events to catch trends in operational safety. ASAP is the nonpunitive, voluntary safety reporting system for the U.S. airline industry; it involves a three-way partnership of the FAA, an airline, and an employee group.

With FOQA, you find out what happened—e.g., the aircraft flew an unstabilized approach. With ASAP, you find out why. No formal mecha-nism exists for putting together an ASAP report and the FOQA data for the same event, because of concerns about protecting the confidentiality of the data. However, aggregate data from an airline about, say, unsta-bilized approaches can be combined with aggregate data from ASAP reports to reveal what is happening in these unstabilized approaches, and why. The combined “big picture” can reveal much.

During ALPA’s recent news media briefing, Capt. Rory Kay, ALPA’s Executive Air Safety Chairman, said, “We’re all very proud of what ASAP has done for aviation safety.” Regarding recent problems that led to temporary suspension of ASAP at some airlines, he said that restoring ASAP has required “a renewed spirit of commitment and emphasis of all three participants—the FAA, the airline, and the pilots.”

ALPA’s president, Capt. John Prater, added that the Association has a goal of seeing every ALPA pilot group sign an enforceable ASAP agree-ment with the FAA and the airline’s management.

Capt. Kay, left, being interviewed by reporters after the media briefing.

ASAP—are critical to bettering our already out standing airline safety re-cord, and that Congress needs to step in to provide maximum protection from misuse of voluntarily supplied safety information.

As a reminder, FOQA collects and

analyzes large amounts of flight data generated during normal line opera-tions. These data provide great insight into the total flight operations environ-ment and have proven valuable in bringing to light trends that could lead to potential hazards.

ASAP is a program that involves a three-way agreement among the regu-lator, the employer, and the employee group to foster a voluntary, coop-erative, non-punitive environment for openly reporting safety-of-flight

concerns. Through such reporting, all of the parties gain access to valuable safety information usually not other-wise obtainable.

FOQA data and ASAP reports already have significantly enhanced training, operating procedures, maintenance and engineering procedures, and ATC procedures.

But we need legislation to provide maximum protection from misuse of voluntarily supplied safety information. These protections must include actions

PHO

TO

S: W

ILLI

AM

A. F

OR

D


by the regulator or the employer and as the result of litigation. Failure to provide such protection will undoubt-edly result in a significant reduction in the amount and quality of safety data that can be obtained. We will be pushing hard to obtain these protec-tions in federal law.

FOQA data and ASAP reports already have significantly enhanced training, operating procedures, maintenance and engineering procedures, and ATC procedures. But we need legislation to provide maximum protection from misuse of voluntarily supplied safety information.

Airspace system modernizationThe current U.S. air traffic control in-frastructure is outdated and ineffici ent. The delays and other problems that plague our ATC system clearly under-score the critical need for



maintaining long-term funding for both the current U.S. ATC infrastructure and for NextGen, the $40 billion plan to modernize our national airspace system (NAS).

ALPA believes that all segments of

the aviation community that use our national airspace should pay their fair share of the costs of operating and modernizing it. NextGen will benefit the entire aviation community. Congress must involve all stakeholders

ALPA on Airspace Modernization: Launch NextGen, and Do It Right!Airplanes and cockpit technology have been staying ahead of advances in the ATC system for decades. Today’s modern airliners are fully capable of flying safe, more efficient routes and flight profiles than the overburdened, outdated U.S. ATC system and national airspace system (NAS) can handle.

As is often the case with large infrastructure projects, major investment needs to begin immediately, despite the general ailing state of the national economy, and be sustained for as long as necessary. In fact, doing so will be vitally necessary to permit the U.S. air transportation system to continue to play its vital role as one of the engines of the national economy.

While fundamental issues of who’s going to pay for the Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen), and when, and how, are being debated, policy issues remain on the table.

For example, one of the cornerstones of NextGen will be automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B), a system that uses GPS satellite-based guidance and other position information (e.g., DME-DME) to provide position reports to air traffic controllers. ADS-B offers much greater position accuracy than either primary radar (skin reflection) or secondary radar (transponder responses).

The first application of ADS-B will be “ADS-B out,” meaning aircraft (and ground vehicles on airports) will automatically broadcast GPS position; the FAA plan mandates ADS-B out by 2020. However, the FAA has set no deadline for “ADS-B in,” which will broadcast the positions of other aircraft and vehicles to cockpits and vehicle cabs. While ADS-B out will benefit the ATC system, airlines will only indirectly benefit, and thus are reluctant to invest in ADS-B equipage before ADS-B in is implemented.

ALPA has urged the FAA to speed up the schedule for implementing ADS-B in, citing not only airlines’ understandable desire to see a quick return on their investment, but also several applications that would offer immediate gains in safety and efficiency. For example, ADS-B in could be used to give pilots a cockpit display of other aircraft and ground vehicles on airports and, by increasing pilots’ and drivers’ situational awareness, greatly reduce the probability of runway incursions. ADS-B also would support such applications as Final Approach Runway Occupancy Alert (FAROA), a cockpit system that would alert pilots to the presence of traffic on final approach and the runway.

in a plan to develop ways to pay for modernizing the NAS without driving our airlines out of business.

ALPA is working with the FAA and other stakeholders to ensure that the airline pilot voice is a part of all discus-sions regarding the transition from the current ATC system to NextGen. We must make this transition without affecting the excellent safety record of our air transportation system, which is the envy of the world.

Unmanned aircraft systemsA category of winged objects that we don’t want to collide with is the rapidly proliferating fleet of unmanned aircraft systems, or UAS, which can be the size of a small bird, a Boeing 737, or anywhere in between.

Today, they are typically flown in restricted airspace or the equivalent, but their much-publicized success in combat has created a huge potential market in the civil sector—among government agencies and private enterprise alike. The pressure to begin commercial operations with these re-motely controlled unmanned vehicles to operate in the airspace with airliners has grown as well.

ALPA believes that, in commercial aviation, a well-trained and well-qual-ified pilot is the most important safety component of the entire air transporta-tion system. UAS pilots should be trained, qualified, and monitored to the same standards as pilots who oper-ate aircraft from a cockpit. Moreover, the standards for design, construction, maintenance, and operation of UAS must be developed to the point where they operate with the same high level of safety we all expect of commer-cial aviation before they are allowed unrestricted access to the U.S. national airspace system.

ALPA will continue to work to

U.S

. AIR

FO

RC

E


The U.S. Defense Department’s Unmanned Systems Roadmap describes a DOD goal of having “file and fly” access to the U.S. national airspace system (NAS) for appropriately equipped unmanned aerial systems (UAS) by the end of 2012 while maintaining a level of safety equivalent to that of aircraft with a pilot on board.

Moreover, the potential civilian applications for UAS are many, and growing. They include reconnaissance and surveillance for law enforcement agencies, emergency first responders, and those fighting forest and brush fires. Farmers in other countries already are using UAS for spraying and pest control.

ALPA believes that current UAS operations, like all aviation operations, have inherent risks that must be managed. Thus far, the UAS accident record and datalink dependability do not support the claim that they operate just like any other airplane, but without a pilot on board.

The Safety Board has investigated two UAS accidents. One involved a Predator B that crashed near houses in Arizona in 2006; while the aircraft incorporated triple redundant programming to deal with a loss of datalink, loss of power left the Predator incapable of sustaining controlled and predictable flight. The accident UAS also had suffered software

“lockup” 16 times in the 5 months it operated.ALPA’s concerns include the aircraft’s ability to main-

tain continuous contact with ATC, the control station, and the pilot; detect weather; avoid collisions with other aircraft; and operate in congested airspace. The FAA is working with ALPA and other aviation industry groups to develop rules and standards for UAS operations.

In the Association’s view, those rules and standards must address the critical need for • common ATC communications and procedures,• the same surveillance, oversight, and fitness require-ments for operators as apply to airline operators,• security of ground control stations equivalent to that of airliner cockpits,• the same design and certification standards as apply to transport-category airplanes,• developing airworthiness requirements that will be unique because no pilot will be aboard to deal with unanticipated problems, • standards for basic flight controls and displays in UAS ground control stations,• a certified “sense-and-avoid” system, plus TCAS as a unique and final layer of safety, on every UAS, and • the same rigorous standards for pilot qualifications and training as airline pilots.

ALPA on UAS: Unmanned Aircraft Not Ready for the NAS

U.S

. AIR

FO

RC

E

A category of winged objects that we don’t want to collide with is the rapidly proliferating fleet of unmanned aircraft systems, or UAS, which can be the size of a small bird, a Boeing 737, or anywhere in between.



ALPA on Wildlife Hazards: Speed Up the R&DOn February 4, two days after ALPA’s news media briefing, the NTSB confirmed that bird remains had been found in both engines of US Air-ways Flight 1549, the Airbus A320 that ditched in New York’s Hudson River on January 15. The Safety Board released a photo of a feather that appeared to be from a goose’s wing.

While the public may have been surprised that birds could bring down an airliner, that’s no surprise to ALPA, which has worked for decades to reduce the frequency and severity of collisions between airplanes and wildlife (primarily birds).

Though bird strikes usually do not have outcomes as dramatic as those that made “the miracle on the Hudson” front-page news, they cost U.S. and Canadian airlines hundreds of millions of dollars per year. On rare occasions they have caused a hull loss and substantial loss of life.

In August 2008, ALPA presented the Association’s Superior Airman-ship Award to Capt. Peter Hupperich, F/O Edward Calzolari, and F/O Joseph Stafford, the flight crew of a Delta B-767-400ER that struck a flock of seagulls while taking off from Rome, bound for Atlanta, in July 2007. With two severely damaged and failing engines, the pilots barely made it back to a very overweight landing in Rome.

While more than 90 percent of all bird strikes happen below 2,300 feet AGL, making bird control on and near airports an important part of the solution, migrating waterfowl—including large geese and swans—will fly both day and night, depending on weather and winds, and as high as 10,000 feet.

For several years, ALPA has urged more aggressive research and de-velopment to find ways to mitigate this threat. In 2000, the Association asserted, “The FAA should use all technology currently available—for example, Nexrad radar and approach control radars—to warn pilots of imminent hazards. Air traffic controllers should be educated about this threat to public safety and should be required to comply with [an FAA order] and issue timely warnings to pilots, just as they issue windshear alerts, braking action reports, and other safety advisories.”

protect the safety and integrity of our airspace and ensure that adding UAS to our current mix of traffic will not compromise the safety of our members, our passengers, our cargoes, or the public at large.

Wildlife hazardsWhile the NTSB investigation into the January 15 ditching of US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River is still ongoing, much attention has been drawn to the possibility that the Airbus A320 struck geese in flight and thus suffered severe damage to both engines. The NTSB has said it does not expect to release its final report and recommendations on the accident until perhaps a year from now, and it would be inappropriate for us to comment on the investigation.

However, the renewed interest and attention given to the dangers of bird strikes and other wildlife hazards is not inappropriate, because these hazards to flight have been around since before the airline industry existed. In fact, the hazards have increased in recent years because of the great growth in popula-tions of some large groups of birds, such as geese, and deer that get onto airports.

ALPA has worked closely with the aviation industry and regulatory agencies for many years to heighten awareness of the birdstrike hazard and address the problem of wildlife hazards to aviation. When airports have tried to develop capacity-improvement plans involving high-speed, low-alti-tude departure procedures, ALPA has been there to point out the potential dangers of moving too fast, literally, at altitudes where birds are prevalent. As a result, the FAA’s longstanding speed limits at low altitudes have been maintained.

ALPA safety representatives were part of the FAA’s team that updated

the standards for aircraft engine design to recognize the growth in bird populations and the changes in bird sizes and flight paths, which resulted in more stringent require-ments for engine design. ALPA safety representatives were directly involved in developing the requirement for wildlife mitigation plans at airports with scheduled airline service.

Meanwhile, the FAA is evaluat-ing use of low-cost radar to detect birds within 3 to 5 miles of an airport and develop an airport birdstrike advisory system that could relay warn-ings directly to airline cockpits. ALPA representatives will continue to closely monitor this research and to push for widespread use if the system proves worthy.

FILE

PH

OT

O

Bird strike damage.


ALPA has advocated for main-taining and improving aviation security for decades;

however, the terrorist attacks of 9/11 enormously increased our nation’s resolve to strengthen our security mea-sures. Much good work has been done during the past seven years, but much remains to be done.

Enhanced crewmember security screeningALPA has long advocated developing a process for screening airline pilots that is more effective and efficient than the

existing system. Clearly, we need a way to prevent uniformed pilot imposters from gaining access to airports’ secure areas and creating a security threat. But today, more than seven years after 9/11, someone posing as a pilot could pass through security undetected because the TSA has no way of posi-tively verifying a pilot’s identity and employment status.

In 2007, ALPA proposed creating a

biometric-based security screening system that would quickly and accu-rately verify the identity and employ-ment status of active pilots. The system also would help reduce passenger delays at screening checkpoints and enhance the overall security of our air transportation system.

This System, the Crew Personnel Advanced Screening System, or CrewPASS, could be easily

Shoring Up SecurityALPA’s point man on aviation security tells reporters the Association’s top priorities for improving security in 2009Remarks by Capt. Bob Hesselbein ALPA National Security Committee Chairman


ALPA on CrewPASS: Just Do It!

Capt. Hesselbein answers a question from a reporter during the news media briefing.

Airline pilots’ ongoing requirements to undergo passenger-style security screening at airports—despite being in uniform and displaying airline identification cards—stem from the Dec. 7, 1987, murder of 42 passengers and crewmembers by a suicidal former airline employee.

On that date, a Pacific Southwest Airlines customer service agent who had been fired used an expired company identification card to bypass a passenger screening checkpoint at Los Angeles International Airport and board PSA Flight 1771 with a handgun. The fired employee killed the flight’s pilots before the airliner crashed into the ground near San Luis Obispo, Calif.

In response to that event, the FAA amended FAR Part 108 in 1989 to prohibit airline employees’ bypassing security screening checkpoints.

Nearly 20 years have passed since then. Along the way, the FAA and vendors have worked to develop ways to improve the security of the air transportation system while making screening of airline employees, including flightcrew members, more comprehensive. ALPA has worked

throughout this frustratingly long effort to provide line pilot input to the process.

Finally, the Association’s own concept—CrewPASS—has undergone an opera-tional evaluation at three U.S. airports, and the TSA has hailed it as a “win-win” program.

It’s high time, then, that the TSA bestow its formal blessing on CrewPASS, enhance the system with biometric readers, and install it nationwide at U.S. airports with airline service. ST

AFF

PH

OT

O

WIL

LIA

M A

. FO

RD


implemented at U.S. airports, using mostly existing resources. In 2007, Congress mandated that the TSA explore the feasibility of CrewPASS.

To its credit, the TSA began an operational evaluation of CrewPASS last July at three airports—Baltimore-Washington International, Pittsburgh International, and Columbia, South Carolina. The system has been an unqualified success, and the TSA has called CrewPASS a “win-win” program.

ALPA is urging the TSA to formally adopt CrewPASS as a standing security program, enhance it with biometric readers, and install and use the system throughout the United States.

FFDO programOne of the positive actions after the 9/11 attacks was the establishment


ALPA on the FFDO Program: Don’t Let it Die, Fix ItALPA’s July 2007 white paper, Recommendations to Improve the Federal Flight Deck Officer Program, available on ALPA’s website, www.alpa.org, covers a dozen specific areas.

For example, ALPA recommends that the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), which oversees the FFDO program, refine pro-cedures for transporting and carrying the assigned FFDO weapon to, from, and within the aviation environment to ensure security of the weapon, maximize safety margins, and accomplish the FFDO mission.

Another example: The Association feels that the TSA should work with the U.S. Department of State to obtain agreements with foreign governments that will allow international deployment of FFDOs.

ALPA also believes that some of these areas of concern can only be remedied by congressional action. The Association recommends that Congress legislate to enhance the FFDO program and include these priorities:• Clarify congressional intent with respect to the FFDO mission to protect the flight deck, particularly with respect to FFDO presence in the cabin of passenger airlin-ers while deadheading, com-muting, or traveling for FFDO training.• Clarify FFDO personal/ professional liability issues and protections.• Ensure FFDO leave for training, similar to military leave, to facilitate and maximize pilot participation.• Improve field support and management of FFDOs to include dissemination of intelli gence and peer-to-peer communications.• Define the FFDO internal affairs/disciplinary process.• Ensure that FFDOs are reim-bursed for costs associated with training, including travel, lodging, and per diem.• Develop joint training exercises involving Federal Air Marshals (FAMs) and FFDOs to foster an effective team approach to protecting the cockpit. JA

N W

. ST

EEN

BLI

K


ALPA on Secondary Barriers: Give Flight Crews 5 Life- Saving SecondsGovernment intelligence-gathering indicates that terrorist organizations remain interested in hijacking airliners to use as improvised weapons of mass destruction. Despite worldwide government and industry attempts to prevent persons likely to engage in this criminal behavior from boarding airlin-ers, individual hijacking attempts con-tinue to occur throughout the world.

That’s why, in addition to reinforced cockpit doors mandated on passenger airliners since Sept. 11, 2001 (unfortu-nately without the same mandate for all-cargo airliners), ALPA has advocated a layered approach to protecting the cockpit and aircraft. A secondary barrier can provide another layer of protection.

A secondary cockpit barrier is a lightweight device that is easy to deploy and stow, installed between the passenger cabin and the cockpit door (or, potentially on an all-cargo airliner, between the cockpit and the rest of the airplane), that blocks access to the cockpit whenever the re-inforced door is opened in flight—or, on a freighter, is not installed. The secondary barriers should be able to delay, by at least 5 seconds, anyone trying to attack the cockpit.

Installing and using a secondary barrier, coupled with standardized cockpit access procedures, can provide multiple security benefits:• The secure zone between the secondary barrier and the cockpit door establishes a buffer area that gives the crew an opportunity to visually assess a perceived threat.• The barrier allows effective interpretation of hostile intent and gives the crew extra seconds to react.• Any attempt to breach the secondary barrier would confirm the perpetrator’s hostile intent to air marshals, Federal Flight Deck Officers, and other armed law enforcement officers, plus flight attendants and passengers enlisted to help defend the airplane.

ALPA and other industry stakeholders are working to develop standards for secondary cockpit barriers.

The TSA has supported an increase in FFDO numbers, but has not increased funds necessary for logistical support and management infrastructure. This lack of investment in and commit-ment to the FFDO program by its parent agency has caused significant deficien-cies in managerial structure, internal communications, guidance, protocols for carrying weapons, and reim-bursement for out-of-pocket training expenses that FFDOs must bear.

ALPA will remain focused on these issues in 2009. We look forward to working with the Obama administration,

Congress, the Department of Home-land Security, and the TSA to rectify these shortcomings in an other-wise excellent critical layer of defense.

Secondary cockpit barriers Another ALPA-supported and congres-sionally mandated security enhance-ment since 9/11 has been reinforced cockpit doors for airliners. Unfortu-nately, some all-cargo airplanes were excluded from this requirement, and those aircraft remain at risk.

Also at risk is any airliner whose fortified cockpit door must be opened in flight—which is nearly all of them—for physiological or other needs. ALPA, with airline industry partners, has long supported development of a secondary barrier, plus specific cockpit access procedures, to enhance security during periods of “door transition” by giving crewmembers extra time to secure the cockpit door in the event of an attempted breach. A secondary barrier also may provide a suitable alternative to a cockpit door on those

of the Federal Flight Deck Officer, or FFDO, program, which ALPA con-vinced the Congress to mandate. Today, more than 10,000 FFDOs protect the cockpits of U.S. airliners and defend more than 100,000 flight segments per month.

Since its inception in 2003, the

FFDO program has been tremendously successful, primarily because of the excellent training and the quality of the pilots who comprise its ranks. Unfortunately, the TSA has placed too low a priority on managing the FFDO program, which potentially threatens the program’s long-term existence.

PHO

TO

CO

UR

TES

Y B

OEI

NG



freighters that have not been equipped with a reinforced cockpit door.

ALPA urged the FAA to establish standards for the barriers so that air-lines may voluntarily install them, and we are most pleased that the agency is now doing so with its industry partners. ALPA is urging Congress to require the FAA, in consultation with appropriate airline, aircraft manufac-turer, and airline labor representatives, to develop a physical means, or a combination of physical and proce-dural means, of limiting access to the cockpits of all-cargo airliners to only authorized flightcrew members.

Securing air cargoWe applaud the Congress for mandating that the government establish a system for screening 100 percent of cargo transported on passenger airliners by August 2010. The TSA has developed a practical methodology for doing so.

However, in 2009 we will concen-trate our efforts on the most neglected area of cargo security—the measures applicable to all-cargo operations. It’s worth noting that the TSA has acknowledged that the potential for a hijacking—and a widebody freighter

carrying hundreds of thousands of pounds of jet fuel being used as a human-guided missile—continues to pose the highest aviation security threat.

Many improvements have been made in the all-cargo domain since 9/11, but we still have not met one of ALPA’s biggest goals—achieving one level of safety and security for passenger and all-cargo airlines.

ALPA therefore recommends

ALPA on Cargo Security: Gaps in the Fence to Close

In May 2006, the TSA announced its final rule on air cargo security requirements, signaling a new direction for U.S. air cargo opera-tions. As part of that rule, the TSA issued the Full All-Cargo Aircraft Operator Standard Security Program (FACAOSSP), which outlined a broad range of regula-tions applied in a layered ap-proach. The FACAOSSP was truly a landmark document; no regula-tory equivalent existed in the U.S. air cargo domain before it.

Previously, each U.S. air freight operator proposed its own set of operating standards, which the

government reviewed and approved. This process created a hodgepodge of protocols throughout the U.S. air cargo industry.

Many of the current air freight security regulations are based on 43 recommendations proposed by three All-Cargo Security Working Groups (chartered by the Aviation Security Advisory Committee), made up of industry stakeholders. Capt Bill McReynolds (FedEx), chairman of the ALPA President’s Committee for Cargo, and two ALPA staff members were active members of these Groups.

In November 2004, the Department of Homeland Security used these 43 recommendations to develop an Air Cargo Strategic Plan, announced in a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM). All-cargo operators protested many of the terms of the NPRM, citing the cost and feasibility of imple-mentation. Consequently, the FACAOSSP fell short of meeting ALPA’s goals of One Level of Safety and Security for all airline operations—a goal that ALPA continues to promote to adequately protect cargo airlines, their employees, and the public.

In ALPA’s view, the FACAOSSP and other measures required by the final rule are big steps in the right direction, but not a final product.

We still have work to do.

installing hardened cockpit doors or a suitable alternative on all-cargo airliners; vetting and performing a security threat assessment on persons who have access to cargo and all-cargo airliners; better securing the all-cargo ramp area; enhancing security training; implementing a risk-based assessment of cargo along with a known shipper program; and making greater use of technology to screen all-cargo con-tainer contents.

PHO

TO

CO

UR

TES

Y F

EDEX

Documents

S ECURITY RIORITIES Setting the Bar for ’09 · complex, high-performance airliners into every region of the world, trans- ... or near regulatory limits for flight time and duty