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American Morning

Roundtable with Workers in Airline Industry About Safety

Aired November 07, 2001 - 09:27   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Time now to check in with Leon Harris on his coast-to-coast journey. He's traveling the country to test the spirit of America. Today he joins us from Aurora, Colorado. He's been talking with a lot of workers in the airline industry.

Good morning, Leon. What did they tell you?

LEON HARRIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Paula.

We've been talking quite a bit about security, and I'm very interested to find out there's as much concern about security at the airlines for those who actually work in this industry, as for those who actually travel through the auspices, the facilities of the industry, and we're going talk about that right now this morning.

Joining us here in Aurora, Colorado, just outside of Denver, not far from the Denver airport we should mention, is Captain Chris Fair (ph), and we also have with us Deborah Brooks (ph), who is a customer service representative, D.J. Johnson, who is a flight attendant, Mike Boyd, who's over here on my right. He's an airline industry analyst, and Pam Gardener is next to him. She is the director of training for the airline for which she works, and we should right now at the very top of this, that some airline employees are sensitive about mentioning who it is they work for. If you like to mention it, that's all up to you.

Now let's start off with this idea of security as we've been chatting here this morning. We've been talking about some of the security that we have had to go through in this coast-to-coast tour that we've been taking, and it's been pretty a much wide range of some going, some starting at, OK, that makes sense, to, this is ridiculous. Do you all have to go through the same security that we have to go through when you go to work?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, we do. A lot of times we are able to prey through a checkpoint that is strictly for employees, or in many cases go to front of the line.

HARRIS: how about you?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All of us going through it. That's part of the program.

HARRIS: Now has it changed the way, did it change your routine, change the way that you feel about going to work? does this extra security make you feel less or more safe best you go to work now?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Not really.

HARRIS: Not really?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No. It's a changing landscape, and I think it's important that we address the changes as they occur. It has to be effective, but it also has to be ubiquitous. It has to be the same everywhere, and it has to achieve the same goals.

HARRIS: We haven't seen that, though.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, we're working towards it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, it's a learning curve. And it changes, security changes daily, and security is very fluid and it changes hourly, and we as crew members have to adjust, and we ask -- we try and be patient, and we see passengers are patient as well.

HARRIS: What kind of feedback are you getting from the passengers, though? I mean, we have been saying all along the passengers are willing to deal with a little inconvenience, to know that they're safe, but I mean, how much longer can passengers be patient?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If I see one more junior club reporter stick microphone in front of somebody, and say, do you mind a couple of delays for more security? Oh, sure. That's not the issue. The issue is, do you have more security? I don't think we really do, but the stuff about are you willing to wait in line an extra hour to save your life, well, of course, but that's not issue. The issue is, are you waiting in line and getting something for it, and I think that's real issue we have to address.

HARRIS: Well, Pam, you are actually training people with all of this. Do you think that the measures that you are asking these employees to implement, are they adequate? Do you think more should be done? Less? What?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think we're evolving. The whole program is evolving, as we started off since the tragedy of the 11th in one program, and we continue on, just basically with crew members, we used the teach them to stall, negotiate and avoid, armed and vented. Now we are going to for a more aggressive approach, and so training has absolutely changed, and our employees going with that. And are we there yet? No, absolutely not.

HARRIS: Are you saying that we all know standards are about the same from airport to airport, airline to airline. The idea of federal government stepping in, we've been hearing discussions about that in Washington taking place. What do you think about that? Is some sort of federalization of the process the answer here?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, it's unclear at this point. I think what is important is what we decide upon and how decide to do it is effective and decisive, it's achievable in the near term.We have to get it out there now. The sooner that we can deploy it and get it to work, the better off we will be.

HARRIS: Does it make a difference to you, though, if the person in charge of the security are federal employees or not, or if their part of the federal bureaucracy or not, or if their part of just a regular business that's actually trying to make a profit doing security? Does it make a difference to any of you?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: From the airline perspective, I don't think we are looking for whom, we are looking for what, we are looking for standardization, we are looking for consistency, and that's what our employees and our customers are looking for.

HARRIS: Yes, how do we get that?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've got to have some leadership. We can't have one thing done in Kansas City, something else done in Roanoke. We have to have consistency, and that means leadership. Somebody at the top in Washington says this is the way it's going to be. Consensus held, we have to do it this way.

And right now, we are still into committee meetings and congressional hearings and all of that. Two months ago, 4,000 people, 5,000 people were killed. Look, stop, we need leadership, and that means someone making that decision.

HARRIS: Yes, let me ask you something else, too, because here is something that occurred to us as well. We've hit five different airports in the last four days, and we've seen different routines at each different one.

Is that maybe a good thing, because if you're keeping us guessing about what we have to go through at each airport, are you keeping the terrorists guessing as well. Maybe that's a good thing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, the element of surprise is one of our greatest advantages, and need to return to flight crew.

HARRIS: We sure thank you all for your insight and for your thoughts. Safe travels to you.

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