Bahrain PolytechnicSchool of Transportation & Logistics

2015

Gulf Regions Concerns and Dealing with Aviation SecurityFinal AssignmentMarwa Abdulla

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Marwa Jameel Ahmed

201101342

Andrew Bardsley

3rd, Jan 2015

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This assignment is my own work Any information used has been properly referenced. I understand that a copy of my work may be used for moderation. I have kept a copy of this assignment

Aviation Security

International Logistics Management

Final assignment

TLB 7401

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Introduction:

This essay aims to highlight, discuss and evaluate the current and future concerns of gulf regions

from my personal perspectives as a reader for the gulf region current economical, political and social

issues. Thus, in this assignment, I will focus and discuss only four different concerns which are in my

opinion the biggest and the most serious concerns that represent both current and future concerns

of aviation security of gulf region. Concentration on only four big concerns will enable me to provide

and show deep understanding of each of these concern. Besides these, in the second section of the

assignment, I will mention different international aviation organizations besides their regional offices,

particularly their regional offices in gulf region to discuss how they should cooperate, co-ordinate

and work together to address the four previous concerns professionally and effectively. In addition,

best practices of security operation management will be provided to improve the level of security

operations of regional aviation organizations.

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The gulf regions consist of both countries of Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) which are: Kingdom of

Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Sultanate of Oman, Qatar and Kuwait (GCC,

2012). Besides these countries, gulf regions include the neighborhood countries, such as Iran, Iraq,

Syria and Pakistan as the following map, figure (1) shows:

Figure 1 Countries of Gulf region

Based on the previous map, gulf region countries share the same geographical location; this means

these countries share the same safety, security, financial and environmental challenges and concerns

as well (Katz, 2014). Thus, they suffer from the same concerns that might impact aviation industry

negatively. As other world countries, the gulf region countries suffer currently from serious and risk

concerns which can be affect aviation security of gulf region now and in the future as well. These

concerns are discussed below:

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Current and Future concerns: the Current Oil Prices

I believe that one of the current and future concerns that could threat aviation security of gulf region

countries is the current issue with lowering oil prices due to the following reasons. According to

Secretariat calculations of Organization of the Petroleum exporting countries (OPEC), "on

30 December 2014-The price of OPEC basket of twelve crudes stood at 54.44 dollars a barrel on

Monday, compared with $56.03 the previous Wednesday" (OPEC, 2014). SAMANTHA SUNNE from

Reuters International News Agency says on Monday, 29th December 2014 that the main reason

behind the issue of low prices of oil is the oversupplying by exporters (SUNNE, 2014), especially Saudi

Arabia which has been the biggest world oil exporter compared with other gulf region countries (EIA,

2006) as the following figure shows.

Consequently, crude oil has been lost about half of its value since June 2014 (LOHADE, 2015).

According to the deputy foreign minister of Iran, falling of world oil prices will affect economies of all

Gulf region countries negatively, including Iran, so Saudi Arabia should limit oil production to reverse

the slump of oil prices (CNBC, 2015). However, Saudi Arabia which is supported by Untied States

aims to destroy both Iran and Russia's economies by lowering of oil prices due to political issue

between Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia (Peters, 2014). According to Reuters, Russia sent a delegation led

by Russian minister of energy to attend a meeting Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries

OPEC in November 2014 in Vienna to discuss the issue of lowering oil prices and its implications of

global economy generally and gulf region countries especially. However, no actions were taken to

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Figure 2 Persian Gulf Total Net Oil Exports by Country during 2006

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change oil production strategy to prop up the current oil prices (Reuters, 2014). This explains why the

current prices of oil during 2014 have achieved the biggest decline since 2008 and the second biggest

yearly fall since 1980s when futures have started trading (SUNNE, 2014). Thus, I think if Saudi Arabia

continues producing oil and ignores both Iran and Russia's delegation, this oil war can be converted

to a real war in the Gulf region which means that Gulf aviation will be targeted and aviation security

of the gulf will be affected negatively.

Besides these, as oil prices can control and determine economic activities of countries (Kazmi, 2012),

increasing oil production and selling oil barrels cheaply can affect gulf region countries economy

negatively, especially that these countries' economies depend a lot on oil exporting (LOHADE, 2015).

For example, the main export commodities of Kingdom of Bahrain are aluminum, petroleum besides

products of petroleum (CIA, 2015).according to Abdurrahman Albalooshi, from Bahrain Petroleum

Company (BAPCO), ''the production cost of oil per barrel was $110 since the oil cost per barrel was

$120, but due to lowering cost of oil, we should produce the oil cheaply to sell it without losing

money" (AlBalooshi, 2014). I think this means that Bahrain is one of the possible gulf region countries

that might face big economic and financial crises due to low prices of oil. Also, I think if gulf region

countries continue facing these crises and ignoring address them, they will not be able improve

aviation security by providing expensive advanced technology and equipments.

Current and Future concerns: Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS)

Furthermore, I think that existence of ISIS in the world, especially in some gulf region countries, like

Syria and Iraq is considered as current and future concern which could threat aviation security of gulf

region countries due to the following reasons. According to Tony Cartalucci, ISIS is made by the

United States and supported by some Persian countries, such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar

while it attacks Iraq, Syria to create geopolitical arsonists in gulf regions (Cartalucci, 2014). In fact, the

current core purpose of creating ISIS is to attack Iraq and raise mess to enable Untied States to

return to Iraq again and control it (Cartalucci, 2014)since last US military convoy left Iraq at the end

of 2011, after spending about nine years in Iraq war (Reuters, 2011). According to Ali Ahmed, political

analyst of gulf region countries, ISIS was created by United States to attack Syria as well and raise

mess there to make Syria's government weak since Syria is a strategic allied with Iran and Hezb-allah

against Israel which is protected by United States (Ahmed, 2014). Recently, ISIS has controlled third

of Iraq which is represented by Sunni Iraqis while it has controlled many parts of Syria as well besides

threatening Bagdad which the capital of Iraq (Rubin, 2014). However, United States recently has tried

to control this terrorist group and is planning to battle them, so ISIS is planning to battle United

States as well using different kinds of weapons including Ebola virus as a bio weapon a as part of their

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terrorist strategy (KUMAR, 2014). Thus according to the United States President Obama, fighting the

Islamic States of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in both Syria and Iraq will not be an easy mission; it would take

long time. Also, because ISIS is very dangerous President Obama told that battling this terrorist

group should be by air military and should be part of boarder strategy to protect Iraq, Syria and

Kurdish as well (CNN, 2014). In addition, Iran has started fighting ISIS in Iraq using its air military

(Bazzi, 2015). From my point of view, I think fighting ISIS using air military whether by United States

or Iran is a current and future concern for aviation security of gulf region countries and this concern

need to be addressing international and regional aviation organizations.

Current and Future concerns: Ebola Virus

Also, I think spreading of these two diseases is a really risk and serious concern that can impacted

negatively on gulf region's aviation security because of the following reasons. Ebola was found and

spread mainly in Western of Africa, particularly in Guinea (Ibrahim & Lee, 2014) besides Sierra Leone,

Mali, Nigeria and Liberia as the following figure shows:

Although these previous infected countries are a far from gulf region countries, I think international

transportation generally and especially among these countries and countries of gulf region could

transfer Ebola virus to the gulf region. My assumption is based on different real incidents that

happened and resulting infecting different people with Ebola virus because of international

Transporting. For example, according to John etal, authors, from The Baltimore Sun Company, a

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figure 3 Ebola Outbreak in West African Countries

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Thomas Eric Duncan who is Liberian became infected with Ebola after returning from Africa.

Although he passed through an advanced system which was designed to stop Ebola infected people

in Dallas International Airport, the system could not identify him (Glionna, Susman, & Dixon, 2014).

Since some system cannot identify Ebola infected people, this could affect on aviation security of Gulf

region countries. Furthermore, another Ebola infection cases where discovered in Spain when a 40-

year-old Spanish nurse who is Teresa Romero died after coming back from Africa with Ebola Virus.

Although she was complaining of illness besides low fever on 30 of September 2014, one week

before she died, the hospital could not proving that she was infected with Ebola disease earlier (The

Economist, 2014). This means that the Ebola patients can travel using air transportation and transfer

the virus before being told that they are infected with the virus of Ebola. I think this increases Ebola

concern in gulf region and threat its aviation security. Besides these, as mentioned before, ISIS

terrorist group may use Ebola virus as a bio weapon against both US and Spain as part of their

terrorist strategy if they try to battle them (KUMAR, 2014), I think this may put aviation security of

gulf region in a risk as well since most ISIS groups are sattled in Syria and Iraq which are part of Gulf

region.

Current and Future concerns: Disappearing of flight MH370

Moreover, I strongly believe that disappearing of the Malaysian airline, flight MH370 is considered as

a strong concern for gulf region currently and in the future, figure (4). This is because this missing

flight is still could not be found since 8th, March 2014 (BBC, 2014).

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figure 4 the missing flight MH370

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Based on a primary investigation which Malaysian Ministry of Transport published

online, flight MH370 was missing from radar (Malaysian Ministry of Transport, 2014).

Although the final satellite communication says that the missing flight was seen

passing on the Indian Ocean, Search and Rescue groups could not find the flight there

or even its debris, see the following figure.

From my point of view, I think missing of any flight for about ten months is not usual case in aviation

history. Thus, I think this flight incident has created a huge mess in global aviation industry as the

incident investigation is still opened and none know whether the flight will be found or not or who is

responsible for this incident. Thus, I personally consider this incident as the forth concern that treat

any regional aviation security, including the gulf region.

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figure 5 information about flight MH370 and its first and last route

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How International Aviation Organization should Work with their Regional

Offices:

As the previous section of this essay shows, there are four current and future concerns which are the

biggest and most serious concerns that could impact negatively on aviation security of Gulf region.

Hence, these concerns should be controlled and addressed by both regional and international

aviation organizations, such as: ICAO, IATA, ACI, and AFALPA (Roberts & Sectacom, 2012). This can be

done only if regional and international aviation organizations work and corporate together

professionally and effectively. This eases the process of addressing my four concerns. For instance,

International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has established many regional offices around the

world which are: Asia and Pacific (APAC) in Bangkok, Western and Central African (WACAF) branch in

Dakar, North American, Central American and Caribbean office (NACC) in Mexico, besides ICAO office

in Cairo to represent Middle East (MID), ICAO regional office in Paris to represent European and

North Atlantic (EUR/NAT) and Eastern and Southern African office (ESAF) (ICAO, 2015). The aim of

regional offices is to represent safety, security, financial and environmental concerns of aviation each

region globally. Thus, all regional branches should attend ICAO's meetings to discuss all regional

aviation concerns, including my four concerns to get different ideas to address the concerns using

brainstorming besides discussing different opinions to decide and apply the right decision.

Furthermore, ICAO's Middle East (MID) should represent my concerns that were discussed in the first

section of this essay holistically and in details to ease understanding. Also, Representing these

concerns by (MID) will enable ICAO as an international organization to corporate, help and work with

Middle East regional office (MID) to control and address all concerns professionally. This would

contribute to save time and effort of ICAO members besides enabling them concentrate more on

other issues and future concerns as well.

Besides cooperation among ICAO and its regional office in Middle East, International Air Transport

Association (IATA) which represents about 250 airlines of total global air traffic (IATA, 2015) should

work with its regional offices as well. According to IATA organizational structure, there are five

regional aviation organizations that represent IATA globally and they represent the following regions:

North Asia, Asia Pacific, African and Middle East, European region and the two Americas (IATA, 2014).

I recommend that these regional aviation organizations should meet more and regularly to exchange

ideas to discuss all aviation concerns, especially that issues, like fighting ISIS by United States, Iran

and other countries using air military besides reasons behind disappearing of flight Mh370 and

possibility of disappearing of other flights in the future. Also, I recommend IATA to divide its regional

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of African and Middle East, so both Middle East and Africa can have separate regional organization

for airlines. This might influence focusing on my concerns, especially the concerns of spreading of

Ebola by airlines.

As well as these, Airports Council International (ACI) has also five regional organizations which

represent ACI in: North America, Latin America which is known as Caribbean, Europe, Africa and in

Asia (ACI, 2015). More cooperation between these regional organizations is recommended. If these

organizations cooperate together, they would be able to improve their security operation

management which would help them applying advanced and unified technologies standards to

identify persons who are infected with Ebola Virus successfully and easily. By applying of efficient

management of security operations, different people who are evolved in ISIS group can be arrested

easily. Furthermore, I recommended all ACI regional organizations to apply Machine Readable Travel

Documents (MRTDs) (ICAO, 2014) beside a unified system in all airports to share the same data about

wanted terrorists who have joined ISIS. I think this will easy the process of identification and provide

high security standards in airports. In addition, International Federation of Air Line Pilot's Association

(IFALPA) is following the strategy in establishing its regional organizations (IFALPA, 2013) and it

should follow the recommendations that I have suggested to ICAO, IATA and ACI, but IFALPA.

Besides these, during and after addressing the concerns, the provided information in both websites

of Middle East regional offices and in websites of international aviation organizations need to be

similar and up-to –date. Also, both international and regional aviation organizations need to depend

more on media and social media to reach their clients and supporting them with its up-to-date

information, especially regarding recent flight Mh370 investigation findings , new strategies to

control Ebola spreading by air transport, their new procedures to provide high standards of aviation

security to protect the industry from ISIS. By applying this level of cooperation and co-ordination

among these regional and international aviation organizations, regional worries will be controlled

and reduced. This would show efficiency of both regional and international aviation organizations in

address concerns. Also, this would influence positively on aviation security image in Middle East,

particularly in gulf regions, so people who are the passenger in this region will feel protected.

Consequently, this can affect revenue of both gulf region aviation industry and this will impact on the

whole global aviation industry positively as well.

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Conclusion:

To conclude, the four different concerns that were discussed in the first part of the assignment

represent both current and future concern of gulf region aviation security. Thus, professional and

effective cooperation and co-ordination between both regional and international aviation

organizations is critical and required to solve and address these concerns. This will improve the

current aviation security level in gulf region to be able to prevent such big concerns like existence of

ISIS in the region, possibility of Ebola spreading by air transportation.

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Word Count2725

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References:

General References:

ACI, A. C. (2015). ACI Regional Offices. Retrieved January 02, 2015, from www.aci.aero/:

http://www.aci.aero/

Ahmed, A. (2014, April 23). Political Issues of Gulf Region. (M. a. Bahrani, Interviewer)

AlBalooshi, A. (2014, December 12). Production of Oil in Bahrain and oil price challenges. (M.

Abdulla, Interviewer)

Bazzi, M. (2015, January 04). Iran will do what it takes to fight ISIS. Cable News Network Inc.

BBC, B. B. (2014, September 08). Missing Malaysia plane MH370: What we know. Retrieved

December 12, 2014, from www.bbc.com: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-26503141

Cartalucci, T. (2014). ISIS “Made in USA”. Iraq “Geopolitical Arsonists” Seek to Burn Region.

Montreal: The Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

CIA. (2015). Bahrain Economy Profile 2014. Retrieved December 28, 2014, from

www.indexmundi.com: http://www.indexmundi.com/bahrain/economy_profile.html

CNBC. (2015, January 01). Iran says Saudi Arabia should move to curb oil price fall. Consumer

News and Business Channel CNBC .

CNN, C. N. (2014, August 26). Obama Says Battling ISIS Won't Be Easy, Quick; Concern over

ISIS in Iraq and Syria Grows; Report Released on V.A. Care Delays;. Retrieved December 25,

2014, from http://transcripts.cnn.com:

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1408/26/wolf.02.html

Economist, T. (2014, Oct 11). Europe’s first victim. The Economist Weekly Newspaper .

EIA. (2006). Persian Gulf Total Net Oil Exports by Country-2006. Retrieved December 29,

2014, from www.marcon.com:

http://www.marcon.com/library/country_briefs/PG/PersianGulfExportsByCountryv3.gif

GCC. (2012). Countries Name. Retrieved December 23, 2014, from www.gcc-sg.org:

https://www.gcc-sg.org/eng/indexc64c.html?action=GCC

Glionna, J., Susman, T., & Dixon, R. (2014, Oct 02). Tracing the trail of Ebola in Dallas: Teams

fan out to identify everyone who had contact with infected traveler. Retrieved Oct 28, 2014,

from useaccesscontrol.com:

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http://search.proquest.com.fg4na8lq9w.useaccesscontrol.com/docview/1566895964?pq-

origsite=summon

IATA. (2015). About Us. Retrieved September 22, 2014, from www.iata.org:

http://www.iata.org/about/Pages/index.aspx

IATA. (2014, November 04). IATA Organizational Structure. Retrieved September 27, 2014,

from www.iata.org: https://www.iata.org/about/Documents/iata-organization-chart.pdf

Ibrahim, A. M., & Lee, T. C. (2014, Oct 21). Ebola. Canadian Medical Association. Journal ,

E589.

ICAO. (2014, October 01). ADDRESSING AVSEC CHALLENGES 3 SUCCESS FACTORS . Retrieved

December 30, 2014, from http://www.icao.int:

http://www.icao.int/Meetings/GACS/Documents/Speaker%20Presentations/Day%202/

Session%204/Jean-Francois.La%20Manna.Ministry%20of%20Interior.France.pdf?

Mobile=1&Source=%2FMeetings%2FGACS%2F_layouts%2Fmobile%2Fview.aspx%3FList

%3D0457521b-5d9c-46b4-bf0c-4b0a1b

ICAO. (2015). Regional Offices. Retrieved December 21, 2014, from www.icao.int:

http://www.icao.int/secretariat/pages/regional-offices.aspx

IFALPA. (2013). IFALPA Structure. Retrieved November 21, 2014, from www.ifalpa.org:

http://www.ifalpa.org/about-us/structure.html

Katz, M. N. (2014). Arabian Gulf and Regional Challenges: Conference Report. Arabian Gulf

and Regional Challenges Conference (p. 1). Riyadh: WordPress.com.

Kazmi, S. K. (2012). OIL PRICES. Pakistan & Gulf Economist , 55-56.

KUMAR, A. (2014, Nov 01). ISIS Could Use Ebola as Bio Weapon against US, Spain Says.

Retrieved Nov 20, 2014, from .christianpost.com: http://www.christianpost.com/news/isis-

could-use-ebola-as-bio-weapon-against-us-spain-says-128981/

LOHADE, N. (2015). Persian Gulf Stocks Stumble as Oil Slide Deepens. The Wall Street

Journal .

OPEC. (2014, December 30). OPEC daily basket price stood at $54.44 a barrel Monday, 29

December 2014. Retrieved December 30, 2014, from www.opec.org:

http://www.opec.org/opec_web/en/923.htm

Peters, R. ( 2014, December 14). Saudi Arabia's Oil War against Iran and Russia. New York

Post Daily Newspaper .

Reuters. (2011, December 19). Last U.S. troops leave Iraq, ending war. The Times , p. C.1.

Reuters. (2014, December 29). Russia's former OPEC mediator says country could help prop

up oil pric. Reuters International News Agency .

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Roberts, S., & Sectacom. (2012). Module 2 - National and International Aviation Security

Organizations. Retrieved September 14, 2014, from moodle.polytechnic.bh:

http://moodle.polytechnic.bh/moodle/course/view.php?id=452

Rubin, J. (2014, October 19). Operation Bomb and Wait won't defeat Isis: It could take two

years to train local forces to face the jihadists. Not good enough, warns James Rubin. Sunday

Times , p. 29.

SUNNE, S. (2014, December 29). Oil prices fall more than $1, dropping to five-year lows.

Reuters International News Agency .

Transport, m. M. (2014). MH 370 PRELIMINARY REPORT. Malaysia: Ministry of transport .

Figures References:

Figure (1): "Countries of Gulf Region". Retrieved from

http://www.powerpointmapsonline.com/tempimages/361/Slide1.PNG

Figure (6): "Persian Gulf Total Net Oil Exports by Country during 2006". Retrieved from

http://www.marcon.com/library/country_briefs/PG/

PersianGulfExportsByCountryv3.gif

Figure (7): "Ebola Outbreak in West African Countries". Retrieved from

http://www.ibtimes.com/where-ebola-outbreak-updated-map-ebola-virus-outbreak-death-

toll-tops-2000-1680308

Figure (8): "the missing flight MH370". Retrieved from

http://cdn5.freedomoutpost.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Malaysia-Airlines-Missing-

Flight-MH370-Could-Be-in-Gulf-of-Thailand.jpg

Figure (9) "information about flight MH370 and its first and last route". Retrieved from

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-26503141

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