Government must foot bill for meeting aviation security threats:IATA

NEW DELHI: Governments must foot the bill for meeting aviation security threats which have cost global airlines and their passengers a whopping USD 7.4 billion last year, the IATA has said.

"Governments are obliged to foot the bill for security threats which are national challenges in the same manner as they would do in any other sector," the International Air Transport Association said in its latest report titled 'The Impact of September 11 2001 on Aviation'.

Airlines and air travellers "currently pay a security bill that had ballooned to USD 7.4 billion by 2010", IATA CEO and Director General Antony Tyler said in the report.

Besides suggesting that governments should foot the bill on aviation security, he listed out four more "major lessons in security".

Tyler said that governments must also coordinate the development and deployment of security measures to ensure harmonised global standards and eliminate overlapping and redundant requirements among nations.

Passengers should play an important role in helping keep air travel safe, he said, adding that vigilance and cooperation with authorities were crucial.

Asking world governments to embrace a risk-based approach to security screening, he said "we must accept that there is no such thing as 100 per cent risk-free security. Governments must focus on the probable and not all that is possible and avoid policies driven by knee-jerk reactions."