Counter Terror Gazette

Air Mail: cleared to fly

17 Aug 2010

Whether the package was simply dropped into the local post box or sent by courier, it might well end up on a commercial airliner carrying passengers and crew. Amy Laboda looks at what screening processes and security practices can be deployed by the postal services and airlines to ensure that air mail is safe to fly.  

Charles Lindbergh, Elroy Jeppesen and Ruth Law all had one thing in common – they all flew the mail – and at a time when the mail itself was not the threat. The mechanical contraptions called flying machines in which they travelled, and the vagrancies of rough, unpredictable weather, were far more likely to cause them to ’hit the silk’ and bail out of their aircraft, or worse. 

The U.S. Post Office (USPS), when asked, is quite direct about its relationship with airlines the world over. “The U.S. Postal Service was an integral part of the development of the commercial air transport industry, and U.S. Mail has flown on passenger aircraft for as long as they have been in existence. Throughout our long partnership, safety and security has been paramount,” says Denise N. Backus, a U.S. Postal Inspector based at USPS headquarters in Washington, D.C. Passenger carrying airlines worldwide owe a huge debt of gratitude to the last century’s U.S. Postmasters, who essentially bankrolled the development of transcontinental air routes, all whilst coddling the vision that airlines would carry the mail around the world – speeding commerce as they did…MORE ONLINE