View of the south pool waterfall as work continues on the National September 11 Memorial and Museum at the World Trade Center site in New York. The memorial is scheduled to be dedicated on September 11, 2011, the 10th anniversary of the attacks.

Neel Shah
Senior Vice President
Chief Cargo Officer
Delta Air Lines

     On September 11, 2001, I was working for United Airlines in the Business Development group. I remember the day as if it were yesterday and can still see the tragedy unfold on CNN as the second plane hit the South Tower of the World Trade Center. At that point in time you knew that everything had changed and that the industry would never be the same. I didn't work in the cargo part of the business at the time but believe that air cargo has turned 180 degrees in the years since 9/11, with a tremendous amount of resources devoted to the integrity of the freight we put on our passenger planes day in and out.
     At Delta Cargo, safety and security of our customers and planes is our top priority, which is why we have invested millions to make the freight we move secure. The business is a lot more complicated as a result, but that is what we must do in order to stay one step ahead of the bad guys and protect the financial viability of our industry. What we are doing is working, because we haven't lost a plane to terrorism since 9/11 and while the system isn't perfect, we can be proud of the progress we have made. Our future success with initiatives like 100 percent inbound screening will require a great deal of collaboration with all the stakeholders (airlines, forwarders, shippers, TSA, CBP and foreign governments) so we can continue to protect the supply chain and our economic security.
     We simply cannot rely on screening at the aircraft to be the only solution.
     Partnership between carriers, regulatory authorities, forwarders and shippers is essential.
     The critical success factor for air cargo security has got to be cooperation within the air cargo industry and between the TSA and foreign authorities. Unless the TSA and, more broadly speaking, the entire U.S. government focuses the necessary resources on reviewing the process and timeline by which foreign security programs are validated and placed into the TSA's National Cargo Security Program (NCSP), we risk significant disruptions to the global supply chain.