[Infowarrior] - Cost-Benefit Analysis of US Aviation Security

[Richard Forno]

A risk and cost-benefit assessment of United States aviation security  
measures

Mark G. Stewart & John Mueller

29 April 2008

Abstract This paper seeks to discover whether aviation security  
measures are cost-effective by considering their effectiveness, their  
cost and expected lives saved as a result of such expenditure. An  
assessment of the Federal Air Marshal Service suggests that the annual  
cost is $180 million per life saved. This is greatly in excess of the  
regulatory safety goal (societal willingness to pay to save a life) of  
$1–$10 million per life saved. As such, the air marshal program fails  
a cost-benefit analysis. In addition, the opportunity cost of these  
expenditures is considerable, and it is highly likely that far more  
lives would have been saved if the money had been invested instead in  
a wide range of more cost-effective risk mitigation programs. On the  
other hand, hardening of cockpit doors has an annual cost of only  
$800,000 per life saved, showing that this is a cost-effective  
security measure.

http://cryptome.org/avsec-assess.pdf  (17pp, 288KB)