Airport security procedures need an overhaul, claim experts

Passengers consider the incessant checks and rules as their top nuisance when travelling

Feb 11, 2015

If there's one thing all air travellers complain about, apart from airline food, it's the ever-changing security rules that seemingly differ from airport to airport.

Johnnie Müller, the head of security at Copenhagen Airport – who is the chairman of Airports Council International, an international industry association that represents over 450 airports in Europe – understands the universal complaint and believes politicians should get rid of many of the current safety procedures.

”The politicians in the EU continually add [regulations], layer upon layer, on top of the controls the authorities make to accommodate passengers,” he told Politiken. ”It would be useful if the EU evaluates whether all the many safety procedures make sense.”

Copenhagen Airport alone has more than doubled its security staff since 2007, from 500 to 1,017 today.

Copying the US
Müller wants the EU to replicate the security check system used in the US, where passengers go through security faster unless they need to go through a background check.

The call comes as EU leaders meet at a summit on Thursday to discuss the fight against terrorism. At the summit they will be requiring the rapid adoption of new regulations to collect and exchange information on airline passengers.

Hans Jørgen Bonnichsen, the former head of operations at Politiets Efterretningstjenest, agrees with Müller, calling some safety rules ”insane”.

”On the one hand, everyone agrees that safety comes before everything else," he told Politiken. ”On the other hand, one must also ask whether any of the procedures lack a concrete reason.”