New Boeing division to tackle air security fears

Associated Press

SEATTLE — For decades, the Boeing Co.’s fortune has depended on a reputation for building safe and reliable aircraft, and on encouraging the belief that air travel was enjoyable and benign.

But much of the public’s faith in such ideas vanished in minutes on Sept. 11 as four Boeing-built aircraft smashed into the World Trade Center towers, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania.

On Tuesday, the company announced plans to form Boeing Security and Safety Services, a division that will eventually offer safety improvements to prevent hijacking attacks such as those that killed thousands on Sept. 11.

Initially, the division will be charged with helping airlines adopt recommendations from Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta’s task force on airplane security.

Many of these recommendations, including making cockpit doors more secure or adding video surveillance in cabins, build on Boeing’s existing technology. Others include developing methods such as sudden cabin depressurization aimed at helping pilots combat a hijacking, or training flight attendants in nonlethal self-defense.

Boeing faces competition in the fledging field of making planes safer from terrorist attacks. Aircraft electronics maker Honeywell International has already accelerated development of several new aviation safety products, and many smaller companies are coming up with rival offerings.

Boeing has an advantage because it builds many of the airplanes that will need the safety changes, said analyst Paul Nisbet of JSA Research in Newport, R.I. But Nisbet doesn’t expect the security and safety division to bring in enough revenue to help with Boeing’s broader financial woes.

Boeing is struggling with vastly reduced demand for commercial airplanes following the hijacking attacks, which sent airlines into a financial crisis and has kept jittery travelers from flying. Boeing, now based in Chicago, has already begun plans to lay off as many as 30,000 people from its Seattle-area commercial aircraft and shared services divisions.

"It would offset a little bit of the hurt, but it would not replace the aircraft (deliveries) they’re losing here," Nisbet said.

But the effort points to a much larger strategy for Boeing — the company’s financial backbone, its commercial airplanes division, cannot recover until people feel safe getting on airplanes.

"That is probably a pretty smart move because, since they’re the ones that are suffering from the lack of security, they’re very, very motivated to cure some of the problems," said Richard Gritta, a professor of finance and transportation at University of Portland in Portland, Ore.