Travel News Today

The best way to keep airlines safe from terrorist attacks is to keep the culprits from boarding in the first place, argues the International Air Transport Association.

The association, British and French pilots oppose Monday's directive by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that said the U.S. would not allow certain flights to land on its soil or cross over its airspace unless armed officers were on board.

The directive did not sit well with France's pilots union, which said that sky marshals are proof that security on the ground has lapsed.

«To imagine that we're going to solve a terrorism problem by putting cowboys on board planes is to admit that we failed at all security measures on the ground,» said Eric Lahon, of France's Alter pilot union.

William Gaillard, IATA's Director of Communications agreed that guns on planes is a dangerous coupling.

«We believe that the best line of defence against terrorism is on the ground. That is, keeping terrorists or dangerous people from getting on board,» he said.

Refusing to accept this directive as a fait accompli, on Tuesday, Britain's airline pilots association called for an emergency world summit of airline pilots to discuss the issue.

In the meantime, Thailand said it doesn't see any need to put armed guards on its national carrier and Finnair flatly refused the idea of sky marshals, saying it prefers to ground certain flights. Sweden also dislikes the idea of weapons onboard flights.

Mexico is following the new rules and put special armed agents on its flights. Air Canada said it's following similar measures on certain flights.

Germany's Lufthansa airline armed some of its flights following the 9/11 attacks while Air France placed an air security unit, complete with electrical stun guns, on some of its U.S.-bound flights since December 23.

Britain said it would put armed security «where appropriate,» much to the dismay of its pilots who have said they would refuse to fly specific routes.

Suzanne Luber, a Homeland Security spokesperson understands the hesitation but she said a layered approach to security is the best option.

«We would love to stop everything at the security checkpoint or at the curb before anyone even would walk into an airport,» she said, «however, we know that no one layer is foolproof and we're never going to find that single silver bullet.»

She added that the new directive does not apply to every flight through U.S. air space, «only when we have credible threat information on a certain flight. This is not a blanket order.»