Managing change in passenger security screening

Abstract

The scenes at UK airports on 10th August, 2006 demonstrated the impact that unplanned change can have on airport operation. However, change is nothing new to the passenger security-screening environment: over recent years, airports have implemented a series of aviation security regulations. If change is made to an operation without engineering the process, a reduction in throughput and productivity and an increase in passenger congestion and delays can be expected.These effects are experienced at many airports today.This paper explores a short-term solution to effectively integrating new processes into a passenger security-screening operation. It then discusses long-term options to respond to the challenges of the future.The paper applies the industrial engineering principles explored in the paper ‘Optimising passenger security-screening operations’from Journal of Airport Management, Vol. 1 No. 1.