Israeli airports safer than those found stateside
This post was published 3 years 2 months 30 days ago and its content may not be valid anymore.Airport security – Israel vs. the United States. You decide which security precautions you would rather go through.
Israeli airport security, much of it invisible to the untrained eye, begins before passengers even enter the terminal. Officials constantly monitor behavior, alert to clues that may hint at danger: bulky clothing, say, or a nervous manner. Profilers — that’s what they’re called — make a point of interviewing travelers, sometimes at length. They probe, as one profiling supervisor told CBS, for “anything out of the ordinary, anything that does not fit.” Their questions can seem odd or intrusive, especially if your only previous experience with an airport interrogation was being asked whether you packed your bags yourself.
Unlike in US airports, where passengers go through security after checking in for their flights and submitting their luggage, security at Ben Gurion comes first. Only when the profiler is satisfied that a passenger poses no risk is he or she allowed to proceed to the check-in counter. By that point, there is no need to make him remove his shoes, or to confiscate his bottle of water.
I don’t know about anyone else, but I would much rather go the profile check outside the airport rather than the public humiliation of security personnel rummaging through dirty laundry at the counter.
We should be learning from the Israelis and El-Al… they really know what its all about and you dont have to smell everyone’s feet at their airport. Read about it in http://www.technonllc.com/blog
The problem with this comparison is that El-Al is one airline and Ben gurion is one airport. And until 2003 was run by the government. Even now according to a cursory search of the internets its only 70% privatized. (Not to mention the fact that they have been dealing with terrorists basically since 1948, whereas we have only really done so since 2001). Disclaimer: the following is my own opinion, and probably has no basis in reality:
Why does this matter?
1. In the US the airlines are mostly private and the government decides not to make the airlines themselves enforce security, but rather creates a centralized group with power over all airports to enforce the problem. Israel’s model is decentralized and thus they have a way easier job to do. In other words its more scalable. But scale is only a small part of the issue. Add to this the tendency in our system to outsource jobs to the lowest bidder and its easy to see why we practice reactive security: Its either that or have practically no security at all.
Unless our airlines were made to share the security burden in a meaningful way, that is. If all of our airlines were forced by the government to do what El-Al does, far more security ‘work’ would get done, we would be more secure, the airlines would raise holy hell about profits falling, and undoubtedly some of the smaller airlines would close down, not being able to compete.
2. Israel has one secure airport and one secure airline. We have hundreds. Saying “Why can’t we be more like El-Al” is like saying “The Entire nation of South Korea has 100% broadband penetration, but the US sucks because its only 44%. Why can’t we be more like South Korea?”. Well South Korea isn’t even close to our size and distribution.
Make no mistake. #2 above is only a tiny part of the reason. I think its mostly a decentralization issue coupled with an inherent flaw in the free market model.