There are several dynamics that come into play when it comes to understanding the risk perception gap between aviation security experts and aircrew and other aviation employees. Today, I will explain one of these dynamics. This dynamic is the conflicting demands between security and safety.
The aviation safety culture is designed to deal with internal issues such as technical or mechanical failures, human performance and the robustness of their own organisations. Characteristics of a good safety culture include reason and fairness. Aviation employees generally understand and accept safety rules because the rules seem logical to them. For the most part, aircrews consider the safety rules and policies reasonable as they are encouraged to learn from mistakes and are treated fairly for violations (Reason 1997). In order to promote learning, aviation safety requires flexibility, trust and openness between management and workers (Pettersen & Bjørnskau 2015).
The characteristics that produce such a good safety culture in the commercial aviation industry are often contradictory to security goals. Pettersen & Bjørnskau (2015) have shown there are organisational contradictions between safety and security in the aviation industry. Conflicting demands in organisations happen in many industries including aviation. These conflicts may have serious negative effects on an organisation (Pache & Santos 2010).
Security is designed to combat mainly external and often unknown threats. Unlike safety policies that are usually designed to prevent a known issue from occurring, security policies are designed to prevent problems that are unknown and may never happen. Security functions are performed daily without any confirmation that they were effective. There are routine false alarms when it comes to security. In other parts of the transportation sector, this has increased the likelihood security procedures will not be followed all of the time (Tripathi, Borrion & Fujiyama 2017). In contrast to safety rules, security regulations are rigid, enacted by an external agency and do not allow aircrew opportunity for input and feedback. Research has shown the contradictions between safety and security can hinder error discovery and problem-solving abilities of commercial airlines (Pettersen & Bjørnskau 2015). There is no existing research that measures effectiveness of security policy in dealing with onboard security threats.
There are also challenges with information sharing due to the conflicting institutional demands caused by the way safety and AVSEC are organised (Pettersen & Bjørnskau 2015). Even though many airlines have their safety and security departments fall under a single chain of command and having the same goal of keeping passengers and crew safe, the cultural differences can be quite distinct causing friction and even isolation between the two sides. The safety side is seen as more open, and information sharing is encouraged to foster continuous learning that makes a good safety culture. On the other hand, the security side is not open to complete information sharing to protect operational security and to prevent their methods from being learned by potential bad actors. These factors could lead to pilots and cabin crews having a lack of trust in advice given to them by security experts, as they are not usually privy to all of the sensitive information the experts have.
Aircrew have shown frustration at the implementation of security rules. Pilots question why they are subjected to searches when if they had criminal intent they could down the plane at any time during flight. They are prohibited from carrying sharp objects on board, but have access to a crash axe on the flight deck (Pettersen & Bjørnskau 2015). Aircrew are prohibited from bringing a screwdriver on their flight when an aircraft technician can carry a full toolbox onboard without being searched (Williams & Waltrip 2016). It is situations like these that make aircrew feel they are not trusted, and differentiates safety rules from security rules in that they do not always seem logical to them. Some aircrew perceive security rules to be illogical whilst there seems to be a consensus in the industry in regards to understanding safety rules.
This is just one of the many dynamics aviation security experts need to be aware of in order to develop an effective risk communication strategy with aircrews and other aviation employees. In the coming weeks, I will discuss some of the other important dynamics you should be aware of.
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