MrsLondon

I'm not totally sure of my answer. But I will say--they have them on El Al and when's the last time they had trouble with terrorists?

NC Penguin

I've not flown on El Al but the reason for that airline not having issues with terrorism is not so much to do with air marshalls on planes but the whole process of checking passengers before they board on El Al flight in Israel.

i.e. the interviews (note plural) that each passenger has to take a day or two before the flight. Two friends of mine have told me about the process.



NC Penguin

WBB

you have to take an interview before you fly !!!!!

really ???

MrsLondon

Do they have to go to the airport to have the interview? That's a lot of to-ing and fro-ing!

FlyergirlUK

I don't have any problem with it at all as long as they're fast and deadly accurate; even better if I don't have to know that they're there in the first place!!

sibsie

Air Marshalls aren't new. Pan Am and TWA both had them out of LHR during the 70's.

I've flown flights in the US with air marshalls and it hasn't worried me. I didn't know who they were til after but if you're flying within the US I think it's a pretty much a given that there will be armed pilots or air marshalls on board.

Pimpbot

Nope.

NC Penguin

I believe that the passenger does have to go the airport up to three days before the flight. The number of interviews one has is on the basis of how you answer the questions. If there are doubts about the truthfulness of your answers, you have another interview with a different person. One of my friends had three interviews, one after the other.



NC Penguin

scotch03

Rather have a cop on the flight with a gun than a terrorist.
There are cops on the London Underground so why not on a flight?

bondipom

It is those guns that the Marshall's carry that scare me. Who needs to get weapons past security when the Marshall's have kindly already done that for Mr Terrorist.

BTW When was the last time BA had trouble with terrorism?

Patrick

The armed air marshal does 2 things

1) allows a potential hijacker the means to have a gun waiting for him on the airplane

2) Adds one to the body count when a terrorist downs the plane by either hijacking or any other means.

If someone is determined enough they will succeed, all the airmarshall does is bring out the worst in the people. A drunk woman was arrested this week on a flight to Miniapolis, she was loud and obnoxious but when the air marshal stepped up to through cuffs on her she got ansy and refused to be cuffed (as she should, she was being no danger to anyone) - she now faces 20 years in jail for resisting arrest, ****ing stupid.

Patrick

Englishmum

We've just got back from spending Christmas skiing in Whistler, British Columbia..

The return flight was interesting to say the least.

We were on a short early evening hop (50 minute flight) from Vancouver to Seattle for our connecting flight to Newark, NJ.

The small 37 seat Horizon Airways flight (subsidiary of Alaskan Airlines) picked up speed on the runway and just as it seemed it was at take-off speed there was a deafening BANG BANG noise. Thankfully the pilot aborted the departure in the nick of time and brought the plane to a standstill on an apron adjacent to the main runway. A lady next to the window spotted that the two tyres on the left had blown.

Well, we sat in the plane for two hours whilst a bus was being arranged to take us back to the terminal. In the meantime the pilot turned off the propellors and we sat in the dark and unbelievably some engineers turned up to jack up the plane and change the wheels whilst the crew of three, passengers and luggage were still on board! It took 30 mins for a fire engine to arrive (there was a strong burning smell from the tyres) and then the Pilot decided that the brake line might be damaged and was taking the plane out of service. Some of the American passengers muttered that if the plane was in the States the anti-terrorist teams would be surrounding the plane..

However, the interesting part was that it seemed that we almost certainly had a Sky Marshall on this flight. My husband observed later that evening that on the first departure this fellow was the last one onto the plane and the last off it to get on the bus. Whilst we were back in the terminal with all the other passengers trying to arrange another flight to Seattle and re-booking everyone's connecting flights I sat in the waiting area and had a brief chat with this fellow who appeared to be in his early 30s. He was very smartly dressed in a suit and coat and had a large briefcase. He told me that he was only going to be in Seattle for 18 hours and then he was flying to Winnipeg, then Calgary. He'd already been travelling extensively through the Christmas period in Canada and overseas (he said he was a Canadian - but who knows?). He also said that he'd checked in some luggage so decided to continue with his journey rather than remain in Vancouver for the night.

I asked him if he had to travel a lot on business and what sort of company he worked for? He said that he worked for a computer company based in "Edinborrow, Scotland" (sic) and was a field service engineer, working for their Canadian operation. I thought that he was extremely overdressed to be in that sort of job as my husband did this many years ago in the City and you don't get dressed up in smart suits to do this sort of work.

Later when we arrived in Seattle, my husband said to me that he'd observed this fellow and was convinced that he was a Sky Marshall. Everyone on the new flight had to get new boarding cards and were allocated different seats (there were no new passengers on the delayed flight). This fellow did not once go to the check-in desk and did not get a new boarding card. He was the last person to board the flight again and actually looked around the cabin and chose for himself (seemingly with the lone stewardess's agreement) where he was going to sit.

Again, he was the last person to get off the plane when it arrived at its destination...

Ray

I think you will find its 3 hrs before the flight for interview and inspection..the slightest suspicion you don't fly..

JeanDupont

Has anyone seen the movie "Anger Management"? Good bit in that about a sky marshall.
If the sky marshalls stick to dealing with terrorist threats and have a personal weapon which only they can use (palmprint recognition) then I would not have a problem with them being on board.
However I fear that the sky marshalls are going to be dumb and ott and will over-react to situations just like the US generally does.
Just watch "Anger Management". Good funny movie.

MrsLondon

That is dumb. The Air Marshall should only reveal himself in the event of a real security threat, not for some drunk woman. Surely the stewardess is trained to deal with that sort of thing!