Thu, Jan 22, 2004
Eddington Ponders Pros And Cons Of Packing Heat
While he's certainly no
fan of armed guards onboard his aircraft, British Airways CEO Rod
Eddington admits it may be appropriate to put sky marshals aboard
airliners.
"It may be that sky marshals have a place," Eddington
said.
However, the BA chief quickly pointed out standards must be set to
make sure it's done safely, as Europeans view the notion of putting
weapons on airplanes as "abhorrent. We want some protocols agreed
to," Eddington said. "The hows, the whens, the wheres, the
whys."
These protocols were the subject of a meeting last week between
Asa Hutchinson, U.S. undersecretary for border and transportation
security and European civil aviation officials. Hutchison said the
U.S. government would urgently pursue bilateral security standards
with European countries to tighten security on trans-Atlantic
flights. These would spell out when and how air marshals are to be
used and also mandate added passenger screening and other stiffer
security measures.
Eddington said it would be better if the United States
negotiated agreements with the European Union, as it has with the
issue of airlines' sharing passenger data with the U.S. Customs
Service.
"We need an international approach to an international problem,"
Eddington said to a lunch meeting of the International Aviation
Club. "Some parts of Europe say they would never allow air
marshals. It's a challenging issue, but again one we have to
resolve."
Britain and France are open to the idea of sky marshals, but
Finland, Portugal, Sweden and Denmark have signaled they prefer
canceling flights to deploying armed guards on planes if there were
a strong suspicion of an attack.
More News
Aero Linx: International Flying Farmers IFF is a not-for-profit organization started in 1944 by farmers who were also private pilots. We have members all across the United States a>[...]
From 2017 (YouTube Version): Remembrances Of An Israeli Air Force Test Pilot Early in 2016, ANN contributor Maxine Scheer traveled to Israel, where she had the opportunity to sit d>[...]
"We renegotiated what our debt restructuring is on a lot of our debts, mostly with the family. Those debts are going to be converted into equity..." Source: Excerpts from a short v>[...]
Also: B-29 Superfortress Reunion, FAA Wants Controllers, Spirit Airlines Pulls Back, Gogo Galileo Van's Aircraft posted a short video recapping the goings-on around their reorganiz>[...]
Chart Supplement US A flight information publication designed for use with appropriate IFR or VFR charts which contains data on all airports, seaplane bases, and heliports open to >[...]