Air cargo securityGerman air shipping industry warns against overreaction on air freight security
German security expert says that, as with the illegal drugs trade, the only practical solution is to infiltrate the criminal organizations themselves; “If [technological solutions] worked, we would not have illegal drugs going to the U.S.—- But we have hundreds of tons being illegally imported to the U.S. every year”
As air cargo security is tightened around Europe, German industry leaders warn that expensive checks on freight would damage world trade. Total security is simply a politician’s fantasy, they say.
The pressure was on the German government when it was revealed Sunday that a U.S.-bound bomb discovered on a cargo plane in London had passed through Germany’s Cologne Bonn airport.
All flights — first cargo, then passenger services — from the bomb’s country of origin, Yemen, were suspended. Interior Minister Thomas De Maiziere was quick to announce that investigations would follow. “Air freight has been relatively under-monitored up to now. Evidently they recognized that and exploited it. This means changes for the air freight business.”
Transport Minister Peter Ramsauer echoed his colleague and underlined the swiftness of the government’s measures. “Our security measures are meant to guarantee that no freight will get to Germany from Yemen,” he said. “Now possible gaps in the air freight security system have to be uncovered and closed.”
Deutsche Welle reports that German industry leaders, however, are worried that the government may be lining up knee-jerk security measures that could prove costly.
“The safety checks are becoming more bureaucratic and cumbersome. That costs time, and time is money,” Axel Nitschke, export economy chief at the German Association of Chambers of Commerce and Industry (DIHK), told the Handelsblatt newspaper
Dierk Mueller, general manager of the American Chamber of Commerce in Germany, told Deutsche Welle that talk of extra checks was little more than a security blanket for politicians eager to cover their backs. The U.S. government has already passed a law stating that all cargo containers entering the United States by sea or air have to be scanned, but this is a task that thwarts all logistics.
“This law is already in place, but not implemented,” Mueller said. “The U.S. government said we must postpone implementation until we know how to do it. Even if you have all the money in the world, no-one knows how to do it. There is just no 100 percent security.”
The technological obstacles are practically insurmountable. “Air freight is a little easier. The containers are smaller, but still, you have to do X-raying and computer tomography, because x-raying can’t detect certain types of plastic explosives. Even that would cost enormous amounts of money.”
“And then you have to tell where these things come from,” he added. “Even if all the major western hemisphere countries say, ‘We have 100 percent
