Pan Am Halts Its Athens Flight; TWA Weighs Move
Pan American World Airways, responding to President Reagan’s warning against travel to Athens airport, announced Wednesday that it will halt its daily flight from Los Angeles to Greece for at least a week--or until it can bedetermined that the airport is safe.
TWA, which has several daily flights from New York to Athens and whose 727 jetliner was hijacked last Friday shortly after takeoff from the Greek capital, said only that it was giving “strong consideration” to such action.
“The safety of our passengers and crew members is paramount and will never be compromised,” Pan Am Vice Chairman Martin R. Shugrue Jr. said in a statement. “Our service will not resume until we are fully satisfied that safety and security procedures and facilities at Athens airport completely meet our standards.”
Flights 80% Filled
TWA spokeswoman Sally McElwreath said the airline’s regularly scheduled flights will continue today and that Wednesday’s flights were 80% filled, which she described as “normal.” TWA and Pan Am are the only U.S. scheduled airlines that regularly fly to Athens.
Officials of U.S. charter firms and foreign airlines said they have no current plans to restrict their service, while domestic travel agencies reported no rush to cancel flights to Greece or the Mideast in the wake of the Muslim terrorist hijacking of TWA Flight 847 last Friday.
“I think security at the (Athens) airport now would be so tight a snake couldn’t crawl through the fence,” said Hans Elsevier, director of Tourlite International, Inc., in New York, which charters two weekly flights to Athens and expects to carry 30,000 Americans there and back this summer. “The surgeon general said to stop smoking but there are a lot of people who don’t listen to him, either.”
‘Beefed Up’ Security
Achilles Paparseno, press attache for the Greek Embassy in Washington, said Wednesday that security at the Athens airport has been “beefed up” but refused to discuss specific measures that have been taken. He said no flights have been canceled at the airport and that the country’s tourism department is expecting a normal summer.
Reagan’s press conference call Tuesday night for revival of the armed sky marshals program, this time on international flights, received a mixed reaction Wednesday, including stiff opposition from the Airline Pilots Assn., which represents 34,000 pilots on 49 carriers.
“We don’t like it,” said John Mazor, a spokesman for the organization. “Having a sky marshal on board is not going to stop a fanatic hijacker or terrorist from getting on an airplane. And once on, what could happen? A shootout at 30,000 feet? Too many things can go wrong and lead to a much bigger disaster. Armed sky marshals would have been of no use on TWA Flight 847. We feel it should be done at the airport security level.”
On the other hand, the Air Transport Assn., which represents 30 air carriers, said the sky marshals program “was effective during the rash of hijackings in the 1970s” and should be reinstituted.
Deterrent Role Seen
“We think the knowledge that sky marshals are on board works as a deterrent against people who plan hijackings,” said Bill Jackman, a spokesman for the association. “We fully support the President’s strong denunciation of hijacking--piracy in the skies is intolerable.”
The marshals program was begun in 1961 during the Kennedy Administration, when 18 Federal Aviation Administration flight standard inspectors were deputized as “peace officers” and trained along with incoming Border Patrol agents, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.
In 1970, the program’s numbers rose to 300 after President Richard M. Nixon ordered peace officers to fly full-time on “threatened” flights. During the early 1970s, as the number of hijackings escalated, it was expanded to an estimated 2,500 people. The program was ended in 1974, but the department said that a “nucleus” of “well-trained federal air marshal capability” remains.
A spokesman for the department refused to describe the current strength of the program, calling the information “very sensitive” and saying its release could “compromise” the current hostage situation in Beirut.
Options Explored
“We are exploring all options with respect to possible expansion,” he said, adding that the report will go to the President “as quickly as humanly possible.”
Meanwhile, the Senate added $2 million to a supplemental appropriations bill to place armed U.S. sky marshals on international flights in an effort to guard against seizure of more American jetliners and travelers. The amendment, offered by Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D-Tex.), was approved by voice vote.
