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.
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