The social foundations of airport security

Abstract

Aviation security relies on the assumption that risks can be mitigated through rule compliance. To assure this, the operational design and logistical process has fashioned airports into mass production organizations where human behaviors – of both employees and passengers – are defined within a rational and logical framework. However, recent empirical evidence raises some critical issues as to the very basis of these assumptions. Employing the analysis of data obtained from 8 airports across Europe by ethnographic, field survey questionnaires, interviews and a cohort panel study, it is clear that bending and breaking the rules is fairly commonplace; most threats are assessed as false alarms; security decisions are predominantly group decisions; co-workers and friends influence rule compliance and passengers are active participants in security decisions. These behaviors certainly do not fit neatly into the classical model of airport design and operations. We will therefore argue – on the basis of the data generated from these methodologies - that the classical aviation security model should be extended to take into account the reality of human behavior of both passengers and employees in the security process. This approach emphasizes the social content within which security decisions are made, namely that airports, as complex social organizations, are composed of both formal administrative and informal social network structures. Organizational behaviors within these social contexts foster how security decisions are made and the degree they are rule compliant. We therefore expand the basic security model but give it added value by reflecting the reality of human behavior within an airports organizational context.