[Infowarrior] - Airlines Want to Bump Air Marshals to Coach

[Richard Forno]

	• THE MIDDLE SEAT
	• SEPTEMBER 30, 2010

Airlines Want to Bump Air Marshals to Coach

A Debate Over Whether Agents in First-Class Seats Should Sit Farther Back Where Some Say Risk of Attack Is Greatest

	• By SCOTT MCCARTNEY

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052748703431604575521832473932878-lMyQjAxMTAwMDIwOTEyNDkyWj.html

To protect the nation's air travelers, federal air marshals deployed after the 2001 terrorist attacks try to travel incognito, often in pairs, and choose flights identified with the potential to fall under threat.

And they almost always fly first class—something some airlines would like to change. With cockpit doors fortified and a history of attackers choosing coach seats, some airline executives and security experts question whether the first-class practice is really necessary—or even a good idea. It could weaken security by isolating marshals or making them easier for terrorists to identify, airline executives say.

With more threats in the coach cabin now, first-class clustering may not make as much security sense. Security experts say bombers are a bigger threat today than knife-wielding attackers trying to get through secure cockpit doors, and Transportation Security Administration checkpoints are heavily focused on explosives, whether hidden in shoes, liquids or under clothes. Some believe bombers try to target areas over the wing—a structurally critical location and also the site of fuel storage—to cause the most damage to the aircraft.

Airline CEOs met recently with TSA administrator John Pistole and officials from the Federal Air Marshal Service requesting the TSA to reconsider the placement of marshals based on current security threats.

"Our concern is far less revenue and more that we have defenses appropriate to the threat," said James May, chief executive of the Air Transport Association, the airline industry's lobbying group. "We think there needs to be an even distribution, particularly when we have multiple agents on board."

Mr. May said he believes the air marshal service is trying to make adjustments.

Marshals are assigned to flights using a scheduling system based on security intelligence and other factors, said Nelson Minerly, spokesman for the Federal Air Marshal Service.

Mr. Minerly says the practice of placing marshals in first class is essential in an attack in which seconds matter. "Our distinction isn't for a free ride in a fluffy seat. It's based on threat and tactical doctrines," he said. In most cases, the marshal service designates which cabin marshals will fly in, Mr. Minerly said, with seating assigned to "maximize the effectiveness of the team." Move "further and further back in the plane" and "it will take longer and longer to respond."

By law, airlines must provide seats to marshals at no cost in any cabin requested. With first-class and business-class seats in particular, the revenue loss to airlines can be substantial because they can't sell last-minute tickets or upgrades, and travelers sometimes get bumped to the back or lose out on upgrade opportunities. When travelers do get bumped, airlines are barred from divulging why the first-class seat was unexpectedly taken away, to keep the presence of a marshal a secret. Bumped travelers—airlines can't disclose how many passengers are affected—typically get coach seats and refunds on the cash or miles they paid for the better seat.

In a recent episode, the Air Transport Association said, a flight from Europe to the U.S. was about to depart with at least six marshals already on board in multiple cabins when a rival carrier canceled a flight. Marshals from that flight came over to demand first-class seats on the flight that was leaving. The airline refused, saying it would cancel the flight rather than empty the first-class cabin. Marshals backed off, airline officials say. Mr. Minerly of the Federal Air Marshal Service said he was unfamiliar with the incident, and that the agency does not comment on specific cases.

Airlines are reluctant to publicly discuss the marshals program since their activities are classified as sensitive secure information. US Airways Chief Executive Doug Parker did raise the question of whether marshals are too focused on first class at a meeting with reporters in April. When asked for further explanation, Mr. Parker through a spokesman declined to comment. Executives from four other major U.S. carriers echoed his thinking, however, but declined to comment because airlines are prohibited from speaking publicly on the air-marshal program.

TSA declines to disclose how many air marshals there are, but officials have said in the past there are more than 1,000, and some estimates have run as high as 4,000. Airline officials say that since the Christmas Day attempt to blow up a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit, marshals have been assigned to more international trips, sometimes as many as six or more to a flight. Both the shoe-bombing and Christmas Day-bombing attempts occurred in coach.

Even with thousands of marshals, only a small percentage of U.S. airline flights are covered. The deterrent is largely that terrorists not know which flights might have armed agents on board. Marshals haven't been on board for any of the recent terrorism attempts against U.S. airlines. Air marshals arrested a Qatari diplomat caught smoking in the bathroom on a United Airlines flight from Washington, D.C., to Denver, and two marshals in Miami shot and killed a man with bipolar disorder in 2005 after he ran through a plane waiting to take off, acted erratically on a jet bridge, claimed to have a bomb in his backpack and refused an order to hit the ground. When the man began moving back toward the airplane, agents fired. The Miami-Dade State Attorney's office ruled the shooting as justified.

The idea of air marshals on U.S. airline flights has ebbed and flowed over the years depending on threats to airline flights. President Kennedy ordered marshals aboard planes after flights were hijacked to Cuba in the early 1960s. President Nixon ordered deployment of air marshals on Sept. 11, 1970, after terrorists hijacked three New York-bound jets and held them hostage in Egypt and Jordan. In 2001, the U.S. had fewer than 50 air marshals.

Write to Scott McCartney at middleseat at wsj.com