AS MANY countries around the world have stepped up their airport screening and security measures following a failed bid to blow up a US jetliner by a Nigerian man, who confessed to have been trained by al-Qaeda, news of the attack has yet to take effect at the Brunei’s International Airport (BIA).
Scenes at B IA did not indicate any heightened sense of security, as passengers and more importantly, the airport security personnel were seen performing the regular security checks.
The first in the region to respond to Friday’s botched attack was Singapore when Singapore Airlines moved quickly to announce strict new rules for flights to the United States.
“One hour before the plane lands in a US airport, all passengers must be seated and should not have any baggage near them or be covered with any blanket. The in-flight entertainment system would also be turned off,” AFP quoted a company spokesman for airlines as saying.
“Singapore most likely carried out this new rule on their own initiative as they are a busy Asian hub with direct flights to the US,” said a source at BIA. But when asked whether any such initiatives were being carried out at the country’s only airport, the source replied that at present, no moves had been implemented.
Preliminary analysis by US federal authorities have confirmed that the Nigerian suspect, 23-year-old Umar
Farouk Abdulmutallab, failed to detonate his makeshift detonator, which was rigged to blow PETN, Or pentaerythritol, a high-explosive chemical compound that otherwise would have resulted in much direr results for the 279 passengers and 11 crewmembers aboard the Airbus A330.
Even as many countries are now looking towards upgrading or replacing their scanning devices at their international airports with more modern systems, the fact that these new-generation scanning devices come with a hefty price tag and have been construed as invading passengers’ privacy, it is still unsure whether the local authorities would seriously consider such an upgrade.
For the time being though, vigilance will continue to be the best detection method in the fight against terrorism, especially at the BIA, as it is also unsure whether the imaging and scanning capabilities there are capable of picking up the latest terrorist arsenals of explosive liquids, powders and chemicals, according to sources.
Meanwhile, Hong Kong carrier Cathay Pacific said it was banning US-bound passengers from using cabin phones while South Korea’s Korean Air banned passengers from using phones or the Internet during US-bound flights. New Zealand said passengers flying to the United States were being separated from other travellers for additional checks.
Meanwhile, authorities in Japan urged passengers to allow more time at the airport because tightened security would lead to delays, a warning echoed by Canada and Germany.
Amsterdam-Schiphol airport was also investigating how a 23-year-old Nigerian with reported links to al-Qaeda could smuggle on board explosives that he allegedly tried to detonate as the flight approached Detroit.
The United States quickly asked airlines worldwide to tighten security and airport authorities said they were complying with extra screening and strict baggage limits that heaped hours on to check-in times.
Extra measures, including frisking of passengers and searching hand baggage came into force on Saturday morning in the Netherlands, which received a formal request from the US authorities soon after Friday’s botched attack.
Within the United States, the Department of Homeland Security tightened security checks on all domestic and international flights.
In Berlin, police said they were stepping up security at airports, particularly Frankfurt, Europe’s third-biggest hub.
In Londo, a British Airways spokesman said new rules were coming into force.
“This includes additional screening of all US-bound passengers and hand luggage before they board their flights,” he said. “Passengers travelling to the US will be allowed to carry only one item of hand luggage.”
At Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airport passengers were told that all hand baggage had to be checked into the hold, except for women’s handbags, one traveller told AFP.
Items for the flight had to be put into special plastic bags and passengers frisked again just before boarding when hand luggage was reexamined, he said.
Rome and Stockholm also announced more stringent security for US-bound planes.
In Pakistan and Afghanistan, authorities said security measures were already high.
“We have not received any fresh directives in keeping with that incident but we are already in a situation in which we are under threat,” a senior Pakistani official told AFP, referring to a violent insurgency centred in the region bordering on Afghanistan.
“Our security arrangements are equal to ‘red alert’ (the maximum),” the official said from Karachi airport, the biggest in Pakistan.
In Afghanistan, Zamary Bashari, interior ministry spokesman said security at Kabul international airport did not need to be beefed up because it was already very stringent.
The European Commission in Brussels said it was investigating if proper security measures had been followed in Amsterdam where would-be bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had boarded a Northwest Airlines flight.
“This incident shows once again that vigilance is necessary at all times in the fight against terror,” a commission vice president, Jacques Barrot, said in a statement.
Since al-Qaeda’s suicide attacks with hijacked airliners on New York and Washington in September 2001 and an attempted “shoe-bombing” on a Christmas week flight a few months later, airline security has been increasing.
In 2003, airlines reinforced cockpit doors and in 2006 many countries introduced strict restrictions on liquids allowed in luggage.
In 2008, the European Parliament authorised the presence of armed air marshals on commercial flights, following the US example.
But experts point out that 100 per cent terrorism-proof airports simply do not exist, as reporters have shown by smuggling weapons and explosives on to flights.
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