In early August, British officials thwarted a suspected terrorist plot which caused airports around the world to adjust their security requirements. Those changes led to confusion in terminals and a staggering increase in checked luggage as passenger numbers continue to climb. Airports responded as quickly and efficiently as they could, but there are measures they can take to be better prepared to react to the changing environment. Here, AIRPORT BUSINESS speaks with Gloria Bender, managing principal of Fort Worthbased TransSolutions and Paul Bloch, joint managing director of U.K.based Transport & Logistics Consultancy Ltd., about some of the ways airports can prepare for change.

Bender says the most recent changes in security requirements were handled quite well by U.S. airports, in terms of passengers being made aware of what they could and could not take onto the airplane. "It's encouraging to me that all of us are focused on what the fundamentals of how that security checkpoint needs to work. What do we need to do to make it work better?

"The best way that airports can prepare themselves for changes in security is to completely understand their current process," says Bender. This includes having a detailed knowledge of the airport facilities as well as a detailed knowledge of their market, including:

• how passengers arrive to the airport;
• how soon before a flight do they arrive;
• the airport's normal processing rate;
• the demand; and,
• function of the operation under normal conditions.

"When something changes, they can very quickly go in and modify their operation or make changes in the operation so they can react to the change in a positive way."

Bender calls this "increasing the granularity of the planning" an airport with plans that have more granularity are more open to change and allow for something that's "totally feasible and totally implementable when you actually go to build this and put it into operation.

"The more you understand your operations with more specificity, the better off you're going to be to react more nimbly to respond to these kinds of changes."