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.

FMI: http://www.dhs.gov