As I sit here in Heathrow Terminal 4 having just finished eating some sub-par airport food with tiny cutlery, I can’t help wondering if we’ve done more in the last decade to create a perception of being under constant terrorist threat than to come to terms with how much of a threat we truly face.

Airport travel has changed more in the 10 years than in the half century that went before it. Passengers have become inured to being poked, prodded, scanned and stripped (physically and with the nude-a-tron) as a matter of course. Getting past airport security without setting off klaxons or a minor security alert has been elevated to something akin to playing an unbeaten season or pitching a perfect game. If it’s not your ill-chosen footwear it’s that chicken salad sandwich you forgot was in your carry-on bag that almost necessitated the deployment of a CDC hazmat team.

Not only has this made air travel rather unpleasant, it has also created a pervading sense of paranoia when glancing around at other passengers. Why is that teenager being so slow to take off his metal studded belt? Is that pregnant women going to attack the security guard with her nail file? Passengers have become so downtrodden that most will surrender their shoes, belts and watches whether they’re asked to or not. I now make it a point of doing only what is asked, as I don’t find shuffling through the metal detector in my socks, holding up my sagging trousers particularly edifying.

This airport paranoia is no more evident than in the stupid little knives and forks that are gradually becoming commonplace in most international airport restaurants. As a would-be terrorist having made it through security, naturally my first thought would be to make for the nearest Frankie and Benny’s and go for the razor sharp fork to go on a fork-rampage. Not quite as sexy sounding as a samurai sword, but oh so much more readily available.

Real target-hardening measures such as crash bollards, improved CCTV coverage and better trained security personnel do have an impact in both deterring terrorism and catching would-be attackers in the act. Explosives trace-detection portal machines (think electronic sniffer dog) are probably more likely to catch a terrorist than a full-body backscatter scan as they specifically look for traces of explosive material – rather than displaying a blurry naked image of each passenger. As was very clearly pointed out in Charles C. Mann’s recent article in Vanity Fair it is not only surprisingly simple to defeat post-9/11 airport security but also unlikely that terrorists will employ the same methods again in future attacks (c.f. shoe-bombs). We’re not just bolting the stable door, we’ve bricked it up and added an electric fence.

There are far more frightening targets that we aren’t protecting that could have a similar symbolic effect to airport attacks – e.g. large sporting events, power plants and water treatment facilities – and yet billions of dollars have been ploughed into airport security measures that are still not 100% effective. Because security measures never are. Thwarting terrorism is a 24/7 enterprise and while security measures have to work all the time, a terrorist only needs to get lucky once to perpetrate a successful attack. This is a fact we have to learn to accept and move on.

We long ago bypassed the land of diminishing returns when it comes to airport security and by giving such credence to shady cells of poorly trained militants we are achieving exactly what they want – a constant atmosphere of terror. If you want a concrete example of where this road could lead then look no further than Israel. Yes, Israel does face a very real threat from terrorism, but when you go to a Tel Aviv beach and see young soldiers sunbathing with their M16s lying beside them, I think a point has been reached where the threat of an imminent attack is being premised over people being able to live their lives.

The rub is that if any country showed the leadership and strength of character necessary to downgrade airport security and an attack were to happen, the blame would fall solely on their shoulders. We’ve now entered some bizarre twilight zone where the only solution is to pile on more security rather than look at whether the measures we already have in place are truly effective or could be streamlined to enhance passenger privacy and dare I say it, satisfaction. Of course there is a trade off between safety and passenger happiness, but the same could be said for buying a Prius over a Ferrari. The safest solution would be for nobody to fly anywhere and if we continue on course that may end up happening when we get to the point of mandatory cavity searches for every summer vacation.

The time and money poured into the increasingly invasive security measures seen at airports should be spent where it really matters – on criminal investigation and police overtime. Terrorists dumb enough to try attacking an airport post-9/11 are most likely going to get caught and dealt with easily – it’s the ones who target the places we aren’t protecting that keep me up at night.

Follow Peter Blair on Twitter.

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Travel Snitch

Currently under construction, the new airport will be Beijing’s third airport – after Beijing Capital International Airport and the semi-military Nanyuan Airport – and will occupy a total of 54 square kilometers with nine runways.

Due to be completed in 2015, Daxing airport is expected to handle 120 to 200 million passengers a year. That’s twice, or even three times, the capacity of Heathrow’s current annual passenger flow.

The airport is planned only three years after the third terminal of Beijing Capital International Airport was put into operation.

Designed to manage air traffic during the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, the terminal was then the world’s largest airport building, with more floor space than all five Heathrow terminals combined. Even that is not enough to handle China’s fast-growing air travel demand.

“The existing airport in Beijing has an annual capacity of 75 million passengers. Last year it handled 73 million,” Cao Yunchun, a professor at China Civil Aviation University, told the UK’s Daily Telegraph.

“In two years, it will be totally packed. And it cannot be expanded infinitely,” he added.

According to Li Jiaxing, the minister in charge of China’s Civil Aviation Administration, it is not possible to add even one more flight to Beijing Capital’s tight daily schedule.

The Beijing government has yet to announce details of the new airport. No state-owned Chinese media have reported on the progress of the project since discussion over the proposed airport’s location three years ago.

China of the future?

But according to The Guardian newspaper, Daxing airport will be located about 50 kilometers southwest of Beijing, in Nangezhuan, a village on the border of Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei Province.

The new facility is expected to serve not only Beijing, but also the two neighboring cities and provinces as part of the Chinese capital’s morphing with Tianjin and Hebei into a mega-zone.

A new expressway and a high-speed rail link is slated to be built to transport passengers from Daxing to Beijing in about 30 minutes. China’s air traffic continued to soar in 2010, hitting 268 million boardings, a 16.1% increase from the previous year.

China plans to increase its total number of airports from 175 to 230 over the next five years. The country is forecast to buy at least 4,300 new jet aircraft in the coming two decades.

But let’s not forget the new Dubai Al Maktoum International Airport, the plans for which were proudly displayed at the recent Dubai Airshow. This is to be constructed half an hour’s drive outside the city in a vast, mostly empty area called Jebel Ali, located on the outskirts of the emirate towards Abu Dhabi. The new airport is an integral part of a 140 square kilometre transport hub, and thus essential to Dubai’s grand ambition of becoming a global centre for logistics, trade and travel.

For the time being at least we’ll have to wait and see who’s got the biggest airfield. In the UK, key figures like Sir Norman Foster and Boris Johnson have repeatedly called for a new artificial island airport in the Thames estuary, but sadly no one’s listening. Perhaps if BAA promised to mount a large, scale model of a Dreamliner or A380 painted in the colours of an Arab or Chinese airline at the new airport entrance instead of…oh, I don’t know, the national carrier maybe, they might invest.

Stuart O’Hallaran

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