Airline allegedly hindered marshals By Blake Morrison, USA TODAY Two Federal Air Marshals say an American Airlines employee told them that the airline "was growing tired of air marshals taking high-revenue seats" and refused to allow them to sit near the cockpit during a flight late last month, according to documents obtained by USA TODAY. In addition, another airline employee identified the marshals, who are supposed to travel anonymously, by saying in front of passengers, "These air marshals have been a nuisance all week," the marshals say in a report written after Flight 1718 of Feb. 20. An American spokesman said the airline "challenges just about everything in those marshals' report" and insisted that employees never used the phrase "high-revenue seats." The alleged incidents occurred more than five months after terrorists hijacked and crashed two American jets by gaining access to their cockpits. Although the Federal Aviation Administration schedules marshals, officials with the new Transportation Security Administration operate the program. A senior TSA official said that agency was investigating the claims. He characterized initial reports as "disturbing" but cautioned, "There are always two sides to every story." Federal regulations require all airlines to "assign the specific seat requested by a Federal Air Marshal" even if that means changing where passengers sit. Current and former aviation security officials say at least one marshal always sits in first class to remain between passengers and the cockpit. That wasn't the case for air marshals assigned to fly from Palm Springs, Calif., through Dallas to Charlotte two weeks ago. In the report, the marshals allege: An American "gate agent stated that she did not want to reposition passengers" to seat the marshals in first class. Another American employee said that the federal regulation on seating marshals was "not American Airlines' policy" and that the airline "had no intention of complying with that regulation." The gate agent boarded passengers before the marshals could search the jet, "insisting that she have an 'on-time' departure." A senior TSA official acknowledged that the officials had been misbooked in coach. American spokesman John Hotard said the airline might well have been complying with federal regulations because it had reserved the seats requested by the program operators. One American employee who witnessed parts of the incident told USA TODAY that the conduct by company employees rendered the marshals "useless. The reason (the air marshals) were supposed to be there was all null and void." The employee requested anonymity for fear of reprisals. "My concern is, what's the use of having them if the guidelines aren't going to be followed? It just defeats the purpose of what they're trying to do," the employee said. The air marshal program has grown rapidly since Sept. 11, when fewer than 50 air marshals traveled only on international flights. Now, federal officials deploy hundreds of air marshals each day. Their routes are secret, and the names of the two marshals were blacked out on documents obtained by USA TODAY. The owner of Roger's Trinbago Site: Roj (Roger James) *************************************************** ICQ Pager: mailto:15836110@pager.icq.com escape email mailto:ejames@escape.ca yahoo email: mailto:triniroj@yahoo.com Trinbago site: http://www.tntisland.com CBSC Group on Yahoo: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/caribsocabrass CBSC Website http://www.tntisland.com/caribbeansocabrassconnection/ ******************************************************* Steel Expressions Orch http://www.escape.ca/~ejames/se/ email #1: mailto:steelexpressions@yahoo.com email #2: mailto:steelexpressions@home.com ******************************************************* The Trinbago Site of the Week: (Flowerline) http://www.flowerlinetnt.com (Flowerline Florist) courtesy of Roj Trinbago Website & TnT Web Directory Roj's Trinbago Website: http://www.tntisland.com TnT Web Directory: http://195.224.187.36/ *********************************************************