Did cost-cutting by AI lead to security breach?

New Delhi It was a cost-cutting exercise that seems to have gone horribly wrong for the cash-strapped Air India. Each year during Haj season, the airline used to send some of its security personnel from India to Medina for ensuring safe operations. Among other things, this team would maintain a register of ground handlers going inside aircraft for maintenance work and tick off their names as they came out.
However, for the first time this year AI awarded a comprehensive ground handling contract at Medina airport which included providing security also. And for the first time ever, AI also witnessed a maintenance worker hiding himself in the aircraft toilet and flying as a stowaway to Jaipur last Friday.
An AI spokesperson, on his part, said the stowaway incident could not be linked to the new arrangement this year. "This time we gave a comprehensive contract that includes security. But it is mere conjecture to presume that not posting India-based security officers there in any way compromises security." The airline has, as in past years, sent the complete commercial team for handling Haj flights from Medina but only excluded security officials this time.
Unlike other international airports where AI operates regular flights and has a complete security setup, Medina sees special Haj flights for only a few weeks every year. Hence, security personnel were sent from India to the holy city for this period only as this is a vital sovereign function of the state.

Airline insiders are unhappy at the decision to outsource security service operations, something that has always been supervised by Indian government officials (AI employees) at Medina. "The loss of reputation caused by this stowaway incident cannot be measured in terms of cost saving done by the decision of not sending security officers to Medina. That airport, to say the least, is extremely crowded at Haj time with millions of pilgrims leaving simultaneously. So having our own personnel there meant greater comfort level in terms of security. The Gulf has always been full of unhappy and exploited Indian workers but they could never manage to fly back home like this," said sources.
28/12/09 Saurabh Sinha/Times of India

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Categories: Air India - International Dec 2009, Airports Dec 2009, Foreign Dec 2009, NACIL Dec 2009, Safety Dec 2009