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Flying on edge
By STEVE HUETTEL
© St. Petersburg Times, Airline passengers aren't the only ones in the cabin with jitters these days. Flight attendants say they're constantly on edge watching for signs that someone posing as a traveler might try to take over a plane or harm other passengers. With airlines putting locking bars on cockpit doors and forbidding pilots from entering the cabin, flight attendants are adjusting to a harsh new reality: They can't expect help from the cockpit if passengers turn violent or unruly. Some are carrying pocket-size ice mallets and making sure other potential self-defense weapons such as fire extinguishers and even pots of hot coffee are at hand in case they need to fight off attackers. Flight attendants are making eye contact to take the measure of each passenger boarding a plane instead of serving preflight drinks in first class. People lingering around the front lavatory or galley are sternly sent back to their seats. While the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks turned the entire airline industry upside down, flight attendants say, no one's job has changed as much as theirs. "We've gone from a safety-service profession to the first and last line of defense to keep someone out of the cockpit," says Alin Boswell, a US Airways flight attendant for 13 years. "If they get to the cockpit, I'm (already) dead. That's the way it is now." Airlines say they've been communicating with federal regulators and their flight attendants about changing rules to handle the new roles. They declined to specify new duties or procedures. Unions representing flight attendants are lobbying hard on Capitol Hill for a package of security improvements, particularly steps to prevent what they perceive as an even bigger risk than terrorists taking over a plane: a bomb or some other weapon hidden in a checked bag.
Since Sept. 11, widespread airline layoffs have claimed about 16,500 jobs from their ranks, according to the Association of Flight Attendants, the largest flight attendant union. And the new pressures further aggravate longstanding grievances, they say. Average flight attendant base salaries are on the low end of the airline pay scale, ranging from $14,850 to $28,622 annually, the union says. The public perception that their primary job is to serve food and drinks, instead of evacuating passengers in emergencies and watching for safety threats, remains a sore point for many flight attendants. "I'd say our job is No. 1 crowd control, and No. 2 managing people's emotions," says Trice Johnson of Miami, an American flight attendant for 16 years. "The whole business of expanded customer service is no longer appropriate or applicable." These days, preflight briefings from captains are more extensive. For example, pilots sometimes mention that seat cushions are good protection against a knife slash. One advised a flight attendant to take off his tie to keep an attacker from grabbing it, Johnson says. He's seen one flight attendant carry a cabin fire extinguisher on his beverage cart and several stash in their pockets the small metal hammers intended for breaking up ice. "I keep a fresh brewed pot of coffee brewing all the time -- that'll stop you," says Cheryl Mohn of Tampa, a flight attendant first with Eastern and now with American. Some flight attendants are taking martial arts courses. Southwest Airlines will resume teaching a few basic self-defense moves, such as how to get away if an attacker grabs hair, in annual flight attendant training next year, said Paula Gaudete, manager of recurrent training. The Association of Flight Attendants wants airlines to train and equip flight attendants to use stun guns or pepper spray. But the idea isn't gaining any more traction in Washington, or even among many flight attendants, than did a pilots union proposal to arm them with guns in the cockpit. Besides the threat of attackers wresting away the weapons, training everyone who might use the devices would be a waste of money, says Mark Tudyk, a 23-year flight attendant with United who lives outside Bradenton. The new dynamics of the cabin have changed the way flight attendants look at each passenger. "You're looking for any suspicious behavior," says Boswell, the US Airways flight attendant. "Like people who want to stand around the galley or stand in line for the front lavatory. It just makes me uneasy." On a recent Boston-to-Washington flight, a customer asked if he could move from the middle of the cabin to the front. Before, Boswell would have assumed he just wanted to get off the plane early. Now his first reaction was: Why do you want to be near the cockpit? The flip side of the new relationship is that flight attendants now count on passengers more than ever to help overpower anyone creating a disturbance in the cabin. That strategy isn't new. When US Airways issued crews plastic handcuffs to subdue unruly passengers, company policy called for enlisting other customers to hold down the subject. Injured flight attendants can't perform their required safety functions, US Airways reasoned. Inspired by the passengers who rushed the hijackers of United Airlines Flight 93 on Sept. 11, perhaps causing it to crash in Pennsylvania before reaching the terrorists' target, travelers today are more than willing to help out. "I'm depending completely on my passengers," says Mohn, the American flight attendant from Tampa. "This is your show. I've had men come to the back of the airplane -- from 18 to 80 -- saying, "Ma'am, I'm here if you need me.' " Meanwhile, the Association of Flight Attendants and two other flight attendant unions want the Federal Aviation Administration to speed up a plan requiring that airlines screen all checked bags on domestic flights, as they now do for international trips. Only 3 to 5 percent of domestic checked bags are screened for explosives, the Department of Transportation's inspector general testified before Congress last month. Flight attendants also are calling for "positive bag match," a procedure in which airlines remove luggage from the cargo hold if the passenger who checked it isn't on board. Airlines bag-match on all international flights. Finally, flight attendants unions want a strict rule limiting passengers to one carry-on bag and they want weapons screening for airline ground crews, caterers and other workers with access to planes from the ramp. "Maybe it's a little safer than before Sept. 11 but still not safe enough," Boswell says. But some of the proposals face stiff opposition. There are only 140 bomb detection machines in 47 airports, and it will take until at least 2004 before enough are availble to screen all checked domestic luggage, the FAA says. Also, the two FAA-approved models make false bomb identifications far too often, said Dick Doubrava, managing director of security for the Air Transportation Association, an airline industry group. Relying on those machines to screen more than 1-billion bags a year would slow commercial aviation to a standstill, he says. Flight attendants are losing sight of that and focusing too much on a single kind of threat, Doubrava says. "They're pursuing what's in their best interests," he says. - Steve Huettel can be reached at huettel@sptimes.com or (813) 226-3384.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • Tampa Bay Times
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From the Times Business report
From the AP
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