Secure-Zone Clearance Withdrawn for 70 Workers in French Airports
Erica Berardi December 15, 2015
Paris airports revoked security clearance for 70 workers in the wake of terror attacks.
Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport (CDG) and Paris Orly Airport (ORY) withdrew security clearance for nearly 70 airport workers at the two airports after the Nov. 13 terror attacks, the airports’ management’s company Aeroports de Paris (ADP) confirmed to FlyerTalk Tuesday.
Meanwhile, a source with knowledge of the situation said that ADP plans to invest 650 million euros on safety items between 2016 to 2020.
“Nearly 70 red badges were withdrawn after the attacks, mainly for cases of radicalization,” said the airports’ management’s company Aeroports de Paris (ADP) Chief Executive Augustin de Romanet in an interview with French media.
“Red badges” are issued to CDG and ORY workers such as baggage handlers, aircraft cleaners, and suppliers.
De Romanet said 85,000 workers have secure-zone clearance in the two airports, most of who work for “several hundred” airline subcontractors.
“To be issued with a red badge, you have to be cleared by police, and if you work for a company that carries out security checks of in-flight luggage, you need three police checks,” De Romanet said.
AFP reported that France increased by half deployment of military personnel after the attacks, and passport officers now check the identification of all people departing the country including the European Union’s border-free area.
De Romanet noted that air traffic fell five percent year-over-year.
“I hope we will return to a more normal level of traffic. It has been a heavy blow,” he said.
ADP is an airport development and management company overseeing operations of CDG, ORY, and Paris-Le Bourget. In 2014, ADP serviced 93 million passengers and 2.2 million metric tons of freight and mail at CDG and ORY.
[Photo: EPA]
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Good. My brother, a retired pilot for a major airline, has always told the family that he worries about airport personnel and those pretending to work for the airport, gaining access to luggage and planes. He says security checks on these people is lax and inadequate. Passenger screening is a smoke screen, with more danger coming from those cleaners, mechanics, even the people who push wheelchairs and baggage handlers, he suggests. They are not well screened yet have access to planes day in, day out.