Many passenger planes carry mail and freight packages in their bellies, and hundreds of other cargo-only planes zip through the skies every day. But pilots and aviation industry experts worry that cargo is not receiving as much scrutiny as luggage.

"It's a big hole in the system," said Michael Dyment, who heads the aviation practice at Arthur Andersen, a consulting firm.

Moreover, John Magaw, the head of the new federal Transportation Security Administration, told a House subcommittee recently that only "a very small amount of cargo is being screened today - 2, 3, 4 percent."

Subjecting cargo on passenger flights to the same scrutiny as luggage is one of his goals, he said, though a new aviation security law does not mandate it.

"The one-year deadline for screening of all baggage and cargo through detection technology is one of our highest priorities," he said. Airlines are now only accepting cargo from shippers with whom they have been doing business for a long time without incident, he told a Senate committee.

Airlines and major cargo companies, such as Federal Express and United Parcel Service, say they are following all current federal regulations on cargo security and stepped up their screening following the Sept. 11 attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Centre. Although claim that there's more to do.

"Cargo was neglected in the rush to rapidly upgrade all of the security for airline operations, and for obvious reasons. Everyone focused on the passenger side because the airplanes that were hijacked on Sept. 11 were passenger planes," said John Mazur, a spokesman for the Air Line Pilots Association.

Major cargo carriers say the security of their aircraft is adequate. "We've always had a very tight security network across the FedEx system. We did implement additional measures after 9-11, obviously," said company spokesman Jim McCluskey.

Dyment said smaller cargo carriers are a more pressing concern, including "Cargo Security" that consolidate packages from numerous shippers. "Many of these companies have no requirements for screening. The theory is that they know most of their customers," he said.

Reproduced with permission from http://www.eyefortransport.com news desk