MP warns of regional airport security costs

National's transport spokesman Maurice Williamson is urging the Government not to over-react and spend too much money on heightened security for small planes flying to regional airports.

Cabinet is today to consider a report on aviation security following the attempted hijacking of a small plane earlier this month.

The Sunday Star-Times yesterday said the confidential briefing paper would recommend passengers flying on commuter planes with at least 19 seats would be screened.

Currently, passengers on planes with fewer than 90 seats do not undergo x-ray screening.

The proposal has been prompted by the attempted hijacking of an Eagle Air – a subsidiary of Air New Zealand – flight from Blenheim to Christchurch on February 8.

Asha Abdille, 33, appeared in Christchurch District court on Friday on 11 new charges relating to the incident, including threatening to kill, possessing an offensive weapon, and taking a dangerous weapon on to an aircraft.

She was previously charged with hijacking the aircraft and wounding injuring the pilots and a passenger.

Abdille was remanded in custody under the Mentally Impaired Persons Act until next month.

Mr Williamson today said the idea behind anything involving transport was "safety at reasonable cost".

He said the Government needed to weigh up the cost of x-ray screening every passenger on a small plane against the risk of such an attempted hijacking happening again.

"I just think it's over the top, sledgehammer to crack a nut stuff and my advice to the Cabinet this morning is just make sure you're very careful. . .to consider what the costs are."

An alternative would be putting doors in small planes between the pilots and the passengers that the pilots could lock, as was the case with larger planes, he said.

This could be done at far less cost than x-ray screening passengers.

Mr Williamson said the road toll could be brought down from around 400 a year to zero if the speed limit was reduced to 5kph.

"You'd wreck the economy, the country would be completely bankrupt and we'd be sort of out of existence but at least you wouldn't have any deaths on the road.

"Now, the reason why we tolerate around 400 deaths on the road is that, and I know it's a ghastly sentence to use, but it's safety at reasonable cost and I think it would be unreasonable cost that is being advocated here to accommodate a one-off, isolated incident," he said.

- NZPA