In these days of heightened apprehension about airline travel, new rules have been introduced for carry-on baggage in the United States. These are not designed to instill confidence. A nail cutter will be confiscated but - as I can testify - no one bothers with a palm pilot which contains a potentially more lethal weapon in the form of a pointed stilus. Nor have a series of recent security lapses reassured travellers fearful of a hijack.
On November 3rd a man passed through a checkpoint at Chicago's O'Hare airport with a bag of five knives, a can of Mace and a stun gun, and was only apprehended on a random check before boarding. Later two employees of the security company were caught on video stealing two of the knives.
This type of behaviour will be no surprise to critics of security at American airports, where private firms are tasked with checking baggage and persons. The biggest American airport security company, Argenbright, owned by Securicor of the UK, is responsible for 40 per cent of the airport security business in the US. It also has the worst record. It failed to do full background clearance on job applicants and hired some with criminal records, including a kidnapper.
Argenbright, whose workers wear a shoulder flash showing a horseman charging with a lance, argue that the system is to blame. Under Federal regulations, airlines are responsible for security. The cash-strapped carriers contract the work out to the lowest tender. Successful bidders end up paying little more than the minimum wage, with no health benefits. Argenbright has a turnover of 90 per cent every three months in its army of 7,000 workers in 35 US airports.
Founded by Florida criminal justice expert Frank Argenbright Jr, the company was fined $1.5 million (€1.7 million) last year for conspiring to avoid background checks on employees in Philadelphia, and a company supervisor was jailed.
Argenbright checkers failed to detect the box cutters carried by terrorists on two of the September 11th flights.
It was brought to court again in Philadelphia last month on new evidence of hiring people with criminal records. US Attorney General John Ashcroft accused Argenbright of "an astonishing pattern of crimes that could have directly jeopardised public safety" at 13 of the biggest American airports.
Mr Ashcroft had reason to be furious. President George W Bush, ever attuned to the interests of corporate America, wants to maintain the role of private companies, with new rules and federal oversight, rather than making the workers federal employees, as the US Senate believes is necessary.
The Chicago incident discredited Argenbright so thoroughly that the Republican House Majority Whip, Richard DeLay, last Friday demanded the firing of the top management.
The company "lacks the competence to ensure that your employees meet acceptable standards of performance," he fumed in a letter to Securicor.
The "catalogue of gross incompetence and mismanagement is so demonstrably unacceptable that ...Argenbright management team has lost America's confidence and must be replaced as quickly as possible."
Later that day founder and chief executive Frank Argenbright duly fell on his lance and quit.
Securicor brought in a retired British Army Lieutenant colonel, David Beaton, from London as CEO of Argenbright.
The company said it would raise average starting hourly wages for baggage checkers from $7 to $9, fingerprint all employees, and pattern its training procedures on standards Securicor uses in European airports.
Whether that will be enough to dissuade Congress from nationalising the airport security service in defiance of Mr Bush will become clear in the coming days.
