Global air safety concerns shifted abruptly from cargo to passenger flights on Sunday night after Qatar Airways confirmed that one of the bombs posted from Yemen last week was carried on its aircraft before being seized in Dubai.
The news is likely to prompt a fresh crackdown on passenger airline checks, security experts said, just days after British Airways chairman Martin Broughton branded some of these procedures “completely redundant”.
“We’ve been saying for years that small packages that go on passenger jets are going to be the next opportunity that terrorists will try to exploit,” said UK-based aviation security analyst Chris Yates.