Airport personnel and passengers: a theoretical model of perceived security

For many years, the main concern of civil aviation was to improve airport safety. Since 1974, with the enactment of Annex 17 to the Chicago Convention, a culture of security has begun to develop, which pays more attention to airport security. However, there are few studies that analyzed the airport environment from a psychological perspective and provide support for this important change in the field of civil aviation. The research was conducted at an international Italian airport, and investigated the social interactions between passengers and security agents at the checkpoint. What kind of psychosocial dynamics emerge during the security control phases? What are the biggest problems that security agents have to face when interacting with passengers? The aim was to identify the psychosocial processes that help or hinder the success of security controls, through ethnographic observations and interviews with key informants and through analysis of internal documentations.The main results highlight the importance of airport vision statement to giving direction to personnel actions and for success of an airport as it provides a sense of direction on where the airport business want to go. Furthermore the study provides an innovative overview because it analyzed airport complexity in all its aspects, from a multilevel perspective. Emphasis is placed on elements that deserve increased attention from airport operators, such as the interaction between security agents and passengers, the communication processes between social actors, and the information provided to passengers. Main results and the theoretical model of perceived security will be discussed.