More than a wing and a prayer.

Miami International Airport takes a creative partnership approach to problem solving.

Contents under pressure. That's one way to describe an airplane in flight. But it's not the pressurized air in the cabin that's a concern, rather it's the small but growing number of passengers who, under private pressures, vent their frustrations on flight attendants and fellow travelers. Airlines and airports everywhere are struggling to control the problem. Private security's efforts have been stymied because this illegal behavior, which occurs in the air, is classified as a federal crime that requires a federal law enforcement officer to make an arrest; however, a federal agent is not always on hand when a flight lands.

To find a solution, security personnel at Miami International Airport turned to The Airport Law Enforcement Council (ALEC), a coalition chaired by representatives from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the FBI. ALEC proposed deputizing some security officers as federal marshals; then the coalition helped to get the plan approved by the U.S. government. The new program is now in the early stages of implementation.

That's just one example of how Miami International, one of the largest airports in the nation, works with government and industry groups to find creative solutions to airport security challenges. The airport's security team participates in five primary groups to facilitate problem-solving among federal agencies, airports, and airlines. Security Management looked at the role each group plays. Following are highlights of some of the solutions these efforts have contributed to that have helped the 3,230-acre Miami airport protect the more than 33 million passengers that use its 95 charter and commercial carriers each year.

Security consortium. The Security Consortium was established to address recommendations offered by the White House Commission on Aviation Safety and Security in its 1997 report. The consortium, which meets at least monthly, is designed to address security issues that affect the airport community at large. For example, during a recent audit by the U.S. Inspector General, the Miami airport's access control procedures were called into question. According to the audit, airport and contract employees were gaining access to restricted areas of the facility. Airport security called a consortium meeting and worked with other members to put together a plan.

The solution includes a security compliance program under which any employee caught breaking security rules, including access control restrictions, must repeat the airport's security training program on his or her own time. If the behavior is repeated, the employee's supervisor must meet with corporate security to review corrective action, and the supervisor must repeat his or her security training as well. A subsequent incident review has revealed that, because of the high stakes to employees and supervisors, few employees repeat their mistakes.

The Miami airport's aviation security department hosts the consortium, and the head of the security and safety department serves as its permanent chairman. The on-site representative of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is a member. Other important players include representatives from Federal Inspection Services (FIS), a collection of government agencies that deal with international travel. The FIS representatives include employees of the U.S. Customs Service, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), the Agriculture Department, and the Public Health Department. Contract security, cargo, and maintenance companies are also members.

Additional consortium participants include the airlines, contract companies that provide service employees such as ticket agents, and other airport business partners.

The Security Consortium also has a checkpoint subcommittee composed of representatives from airport security, airport police, the FAA, the air carriers, and the security companies involved with that aspect of airport protection. The airlines are responsible for the checkpoints - areas where passengers and carry-on luggage are screened by security for weapons and explosives. At Miami, there are nine of these locations operated by three different security companies.

The subcommittee was established to review security policies and to discuss problems at the checkpoints. One problem was the challenge of hiring and retaining quality screeners.

To help solve the problem, the subcommittee established an employee recognition program for the checkpoint staff. The program, which is in its second year, recognizes one employee each month based on standard criteria including attendance, FAA testing achievements, skill level, special training, customer service, attitude, personal appearance, knowledge of the job, and teamwork.

The selected employee is recognized at a special luncheon attended by airline management and is given free parking or public transportation vouchers for a month. Electronic bulletin boards throughout the airport name the employee and his or her contract security company. In addition, a poster with the employee of the month's photo is displayed at that worker's checkpoint site.

The subcommittee added other incentives during 1998, including a year-end ceremony sponsored by the airlines to recognize the year's twelve award-winning screeners and their security companies. The subcommittee also picked a checkpoint employee of the year. For the ceremony, the airlines donated awards for each of the twelve screeners and gave a special prize to the screener of the year. The security companies are also recognized at the ceremony with special posters bearing photos of the company's winning employees.

ALEC. ALEC, which helped with the unruly passenger problem mentioned earlier, was established seven years ago as part of the changes implemented by the FAA in the wake of the 1988 tragedy involving a Pan Am jet that was blown up by terrorists over Lockerbie, Scotland. The council meets at least quarterly. Members of this group include the airport's aviation security department, the Miami-Dade Police Department, U.S. Customs, the INS, Agriculture, the U.S. Secret Service, the State Department, the U.S. Postal Police, and a representative from the U.S. Department of Transportation's inspector general's office.

ALEC deals primarily with law enforcement issues, but the council is also involved in determining which security features will go into new airport terminals. For example, when Miami airport officials began planning a $4 billion renovation and construction project, council members were invited into the process. To gather information about card access, CCTV, and fire systems, key council members from the security department and various government officials toured several major airports throughout the country, including O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, Dulles International Airport in Washington, D.C., and Newark Airport near New York City. At each site, the council members met with airport and agency officials to examine security.

The council then took its recommendations, which combined the best options from the various airports visited, back to architects and engineers at Miami, who incorporated them into the master plan. The council members recommended an airportwide integrated system that would combine security, safety, and time and attendance functions. The council also developed a plan to conduct comprehensive security screening of all passengers and all baggage.

Sweeps. The Sweeps Team is a self-policing unit that monitors all security issues required by federal regulations. Security, along with representatives from the FAA, postal police, and local law enforcement, conduct regular checks of the airport.

The Sweeps Team sets up a check at least quarterly in some part of the airport and reviews all relevant security issues at that location. For example, the team might set up a sweep in the customs area. There the team would check identification badges, inspect access control systems, and review the paperwork completed by security employees. Although when and where the sweeps will be conducted is kept secret from employees, the goal is to influence overall airport policy rather than to punish individuals.

According to Nelson Aramas, director of aviation security, the Sweeps Team not only helps detect immediate problems but also fosters better ongoing communications between regulators and airport personnel. "The team is an effort at self-policing," he says. "By involving the federal agencies and conducting a joint inspection, security can show that it is trying. The improved relationship then promotes better security."

Reinvention lab. The Miami International Airport Reinvention Lab is charged with finding innovative solutions to problems faced by airports and air carriers. The lab is composed of representatives from federal agencies, international air carriers, the Miami-Dade County government, and the airport. Although other airports now have similar programs, this lab was the first of its kind when established by Vice President Al Gore in 1995.

The reinvention lab's mission is not limited to solving safety and security problems, but these issues are given priority. The lab was instrumental in helping the customs department apply for and obtain government funding for additional x-ray machines. The group also convinced Customs officials to allocate penalty funds collected from passengers to help fund purchases of new security equipment and hiring of additional security personnel.

But the lab's most significant security achievement was the installation of a bar code system to track luggage from international flights as it moves through the airport. Prior to the installation of the bar code system, employees checked baggage against written lists - a time consuming and sometimes faulty method. The reinvention lab designed a program through which luggage would be logged at various points using a bar code tagging and database system. The first of its kind in the world when it was completed in 1997, the system has since been adopted at forty airports around the world.

Crime watch. The Airport Crime Watch was established more than fourteen years ago by the Miami-Dade County Police Department. It is the longest running cooperative group at the airport.

Participants include representatives from the county police, airport police, airlines, and businesses that operate within the airport. The group holds monthly meetings on topics such as catching shoplifters, deterring pickpockets, and spotting ticket fraud.

According to Lt. Mark Forare of the Miami-Dade County Police, who serves as chairman of the crime watch committee, the group has been most successful in getting business owners to talk to each other about security issues. "The businesspeople in one terminal may not know that they are dealing with the same pickpocket who was in another terminal the week before," says Forare. "By communicating, we can often help businesses find simple solutions to their problems."

The group also serves as a resource for business owners. On request, the committee will hold seminars for employees on a variety of security topics.

According to Aramas, the airport's success can be traced to cooperation. "At heart, security, federal agencies, airlines, and airport businesses all have the same security and safety goals," he says. "Our cooperative efforts make meeting those goals a lot easier."

RELATED ARTICLE: Training Slow to Take Off

Instructors at the Miami-Dade Community College (MDCC) have developed special courses for security checkpoint screeners and other airline security positions. The MDCC program is certified by the FAA, giving the college the right to teach the same FAA material used for training by airlines. The program is more comprehensive than most security training offered by airlines, however, and also includes instruction on customer service.

The goal of the program, according to its founder, university instructor Joe Gonzalez, is to provide students with background training so that they can come to the airport ready to begin work. But the program has been slow to take off. The training is not a prerequisite for checkpoint screeners or security personnel, nor does it boost the entry-level salary, which is fairly low. And since classes are not paid for by the airport or airlines, prospective employees have had little incentive to enroll in the program.

Gonzalez is trying to address these problems. He has established funding programs that use government grants to offer the course free to those who agree to pursue jobs in the airline security field. Gonzalez is also working with airlines in hopes that the training money airlines save because of the government grants could be allocated to salary increases.

RELATED ARTICLE: Solving Problems on the Fly

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has launched a number of programs designed to enhance aviation security since the White House Commission on Aviation Safety and Security released its report in 1997. Programs established in 1998 covered issues such as explosives detection, passenger screening, and background checks on security employees (see "All Systems Go" July 1998 Security Management). This year, the FAA is pursuing two additional issues: baggage screening and certifying the contract security companies that serve airports.

Baggage screening. Most airlines currently don't screen checked packages, nor do they match bags to passengers boarding flights. The FAA has proposed regulations that would require airlines to apply additional security to the checked baggage of certain passengers on domestic flights carrying more than 60 people. Under the proposed rule, airlines are encouraged to use the FAA's controversial computer-assisted passenger screening (CAPS) system to select passengers whose checked luggage would be subjected to additional security screening. However, the proposal does offer other alternatives, such as checking all baggage or matching each piece of checked luggage to its owner on a particular flight. The proposal would also require that each carrier's FAA-approved security program include the procedures used to check baggage.

CAPS, which was released to airlines early last year, uses passenger and ticketing information to identify passengers who are most likely to present a security threat. The system has drawn criticism from privacy and civil rights groups who have complained that CAPS chooses high-risk passengers based on racial or ethnic biases.

The FAA has responded that CAPS eliminates much of the bias endemic to manual screening systems where the attitudes and preconceptions of an individual screener are at issue. In addition, the FAA defends its program by pointing out that the agency's criteria for screening under the CAPS system were reviewed by a panel of independent civil liberties experts. Following the review, the FAA adjusted the program based on the panel's recommendations.

Screening companies. One of the laws that came out of the commission's 1997 recommendations, the Federal Aviation Reauthorization Act, required the FAA to submit a report to Congress detailing ways to improve the performance of security screeners at airline checkpoints. Noting that the FAA is two years late in issuing the report, the General Accounting Office (GAO) investigated the status of the screening plan and submitted its own account of the situation to Congress in February.

In its report, the GAO finds that the FAA has made the most progress in its efforts to develop a program that would help the administration measure the performance of individual screeners. The testing method the FAA has chosen is called Threat Image Projection (TIP), an automated program designed to be used in the field.

FAA plans to install the TIP system on existing x-ray machines at airline checkpoints. TIP can then be used to test the screener's ability to detect threats by projecting images such as guns and explosives onto bags as they are being screened. When a test-object throat has been projected, the screener, who does not know a test is underway, must identify the threat and call for the bag to be searched, a process that includes making a computer record of this step. Once this is done, bet before the search is conducted, the TIP software indicates to the screener that the threat was a test and records the screener's performance in a database. The database information would then be used by the FAA to analyze performance trends. Screening companies will be held responsible for the results.

The FAA is currently devising national standards and developing the training programs necessary to certify security companies. The FAA has announced that these regulations will be released for comment later this year with a final rule issued in late 2000.

The FAA's proposed rule on baggage screening and the GAO report on certifying security companies are available on the Web at SM Online.

Teresa Anderson is senior editor at Security Management. (For related stories on airport security applications, see "Working Wise" page 23.)