New security measures at YVR

[grumpydigger]

There is a new level of security for passengers at Vancouver International Airport as Transport Canada pilots a program called Passenger Behaviour Observation.

Transport Canada Spokesperson Patrick Charette said it's another layer of security.

"We will have officers trained to look for suspicious behaviour and to assess whether they are passengers that represent threats for aviation security." he said.

The pilot program started in January.

It's being tested only at YVR.

Charette said the program is not ethnic or racial profiling because officials will be looking for specific behaviours.

Passenger behaviour assessments are employed by a number of countries around the world, including Israel.

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columb ... z1DyIkZR00

[grumpydigger]

it looks as if, this is the answer that they have tried to come up with regarding security.........more or less racial profiling , and trying to judge people by their state of nervousness and perhaps their attitudes in long lineups.

it certainly is not, any answer to the Vancouver airport tazering death.

It is probably only a matter of time , until we have security with automatic weapons throughout all our airports in Canada .

[coffeeFreak]

You beat me to it grumpydigger

What a joke!! Can't help but wonder what officers they are referring to why, oh why, oh why are these officers not already trained to identify the "suspicious"?!! Wonder what the added training costs will be?

[Bagotricks]

...so now the impatient, socially awkward and animated faced people will be strip searched.

Dont feel any safer as we all know that terrorists watch the news and have enough intelligence to realize that a attack via commercial air carriers is going to have the highest security and have the most vigilantly watched security zones.

Meanwhile for every 1 passenger jet in the sky there are 5 cargo jets. How hard is it to get a job at FedEx or UPS and load their cargo planes?

The Illusion of safety.

[quagmaire]

You raise a very good point regarding cargo A/C bago, unfortunately, your numbers are slightly off.

I don't know what the ratio of passenger to cargo is, but a couple of examples:
YLW today has (approx) 30 arriving passenger flights, 3 cargo flights.
YWG (I chose YWG because it happens to be Purolator's central Canada hub) today has (approx) 74 arriving passenger and maybe 10 cargo.
Again, a sample of two Canadian airports does not make for accuracy, but the 1 to 5 isn't right either.

Having said that, you are right in saying that doing something malicious to a cargo A/C is much easier than passenger. They still operate in a 'secure' area, but access is relatively easy.

[quagmaire]

Cargo vs passenger aside, North America has been behind the curve regarding airport security for a long time. Israel has been training it's people in profiling for a long time (decades?) and they have an excellent record regarding security.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70P_UW5VwWY

Airport security has nothing to do with the tazering death. That is a separate matter altogether.

[Veovis]

Doesn't this sound like it could fall apart though? You're going to have people scrutinize people to see if they get nervous, yet innocent people tend to feel nervous when getting scrutinized.

It's like you can't win.

[Bagotricks]

You raise a very good point regarding cargo A/C bago, unfortunately, your numbers are slightly off.

I don't know what the ratio of passenger to cargo is, but a couple of examples:
YLW today has (approx) 30 arriving passenger flights, 3 cargo flights.
YWG (I chose YWG because it happens to be Purolator's central Canada hub) today has (approx) 74 arriving passenger and maybe 10 cargo.
Again, a sample of two Canadian airports does not make for accuracy, but the 1 to 5 isn't right either.

Having said that, you are right in saying that doing something malicious to a cargo A/C is much easier than passenger. They still operate in a 'secure' area, but access is relatively easy.

I got that number from a CBC news article and I believe it was a world wide statistic. Canada only has 32 million people and therefore even our shipping hubs are less populated. Air travel is also a necessity in Canada as we have a huge country and a small population and terrible winter driving conditions, so more people fly.

But you agree...and I know people that work here in town and load the planes. It is more difficult to be a simple passenger on WestJet than it is to get a job loading cargo planes by a longshot.

Cargo planes dont have "secure doors" and are less prepared for a Hijacking. If I was a terrorist - that's what I would do. Everyone's looking in a certain direction - the terrorists will go elsewhere. All these "foiled attacks" are just probes and decoys.

[quagmaire]

I must concede the point. Even after nearly 20 years in the industry, I know (embarrassingly) little about world wide cargo operations. I imagine that there are literally tons upon tons of goods flying in and out of China every day alone.

For the last 10years we have been watching 'the experts' shore up the front door of airport and aircraft security, while the back door is missing a lock and the upper hinge is broken. The general public is finally starting to ask the relevant questions to truly get the back door fixed. I can tell you though, the behind the scenes workers tend to be a pretty tight group who are every bit as concerned about security as you are. They already notice and report suspicious activity.
Besides, hijacking an aircraft on the ground just isn't very effective. It's incredibly unlikely that it would get off the ground.
But you don't even have to go to the airport to get cargo on an airplane. That really is the easiest way to make the papers. It has already been 'tested' by the folks who put together the toner cartridge 'bombs'.

[FreeRights]

I don't understand why people have such a problem with airport security.

Even if we add behavioural observation, and do everything that seems to make every one of you wake up in tears and a cold sweat, we still have a poor security plan.

Obviously none of you have ever flown into or out of Israel, but they have one of the finest airport security programs in the world.

[Bagotricks]

I don't understand why people have such a problem with airport security.

Even if we add behavioural observation, and do everything that seems to make every one of you wake up in tears and a cold sweat, we still have a poor security plan.

Obviously none of you have ever flown into or out of Israel, but they have one of the finest airport security programs in the world.

Yeah lets all try and be more like Israel - the whole country is like a giant security zone / prison. Great aspirations.

[grumpydigger]

.