Why airlines won’t tell you about threats against flights

Airline threats can be crippling affairs – grounded planes, sifting through baggage, poring over passenger manifestos, in depth investigations by the local authorities, passenger vouchers and free flights, lost business – it all adds up, costing tens of thousands of dollars.

Now multiply that by five.

Since June 27, WestJet has received four bomb threats and one unspecified threat.

“I’m sure in these cases, the airline probably figures there’s a really low probability of them being legitimate,” says Fred Lazar, an aviation analyst and professor at the Schulich School of Business. “However, what if you’re wrong and you end up with catastrophic consequences?”

Which is why it doesn’t matter if it’s the first threat or the fiftieth.

“They’re going to take all these threats seriously and do whatever is necessary,” says Lazar.

He points out that logically from a bomb threat standpoint, terrorists are unlikely to call ahead and someone committing suicide wouldn’t really tip an airline off, so chances are, the type of person who would call would be a disgruntled employee.

“If you look at the history of the type of all these events, one can probably conclude the probability of threats called in being credible is very close to zero, “ he adds. “But it’s not zero.”

Which means they need to be thoroughly investigated before putting the plane in the air. Law enforcement has to investigate where the call came from and do its best to ensure the plane has been thoroughly swept.

With WestJet’s series of the threats, the planes were in the air and had to divert mid-flight, with passengers placed on alternate flights. The RCMP is treating the calls as “criminal mischief.”

“I’m sure WestJet is working with the right authorities to trace these calls,” says Lazar. “They probably have more sophisticated equipment for tracing incoming calls and will be working to figure out if it’s one individual, a group of individuals, legitimate or not.”

While WestJet didn’t respond to requests for comment but issued a statement surrounding the first four threats.

“We understand and appreciate that four false threats in five days is generating a great deal of interest and unfortunately, rumour and speculation,” the airline said. “We will not comment on these rumours nor will we share information about how we handle with these incidents, for obvious reasons. We will continue to work closely with law enforcement to find those responsible. Safety remains our top priority and we will continue to be vigilant to keep our guests and our crews safe.”

Air Canada spokesperson Peter Fitzpatrick says the airline also couldn’t go into particulars about the process surrounding threats against the airlines.

“We keep our security processes confidential as part of their effectiveness lies in the fact people do not know how they work,” wrote Fitzpatrick in an emailed response to Yahoo News.

If the threats are made against a flight attendant (FA), they instantly report it to the captain who makes the call on what to do about the flight, says Troy Winters, senior health and safety officer of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, which represents Air Canada’s flight attendants and crew.

“It is rare that a FA would be the one that receives the threat and it would be the airline that makes the calls,” says Winters. “All other specific measures can’t be discussed, but every airline has specific protocols for which the FA’s are trained to follow for threat situations as part of their annual recurrence emergency training.”

As for the expenses, Lazar says it’ll cost from day one.

“The cost to divert the planes, they’ll have to pay additional landing fees, takeoff fees, there’s cost for crews, cost for food, anything for passengers,” he adds. “And then that plane is out of service for awhile so you’ve got the domino effects throughout your network.”

Including other flights being delayed and cancelled which ultimately, he says, leads to the airline playing catching.

And then there’s the good will aspect.

“One threat won’t have much of an impact on travellers but once you start getting regular threats passengers have a choice – they can say you know what I can go from A to B on an airline other than WestJet so for the time being I’m going to do that just for piece of mind,” says Lazar. “Some of the people that switch may not come back – even still, the cost to an airline is much greater if a bomb goes off and brings down a plane.”