Pan Am to Resume Athens Flight

Pan American World Airways on Friday will resume its daily flight from San Francisco and Los Angeles to Athens because security at the airport has improved after the hijacking of a Trans World Airlines plane a week ago, a spokesman for the airline said Tuesday.

“Based on a review of (security) improvements initiated by the Greek government and ourselves, Pan Am will shortly announce a resumption of flights to Athens,” Pan Am spokesman Jeff Kindler told a reporter. Last Wednesday, the airline halted flights in and out of the Hellenikon airport after President Reagan advised Americans not to travel to Athens.

TWA continued to fly to Greece, saying it is satisfied with its own security arrangements there. TWA has its own ground staff at the Athens airport and has long insisted on carrying out its own security checks in departure lounges, repeating the airport’s screening of passengers with metal detectors and carry-on luggage with X-ray machines.

It still is not known how the two men who hijacked TWA Flight 847 got weapons on board. An accomplice said they fooled detection devices by wrapping the guns in fiberglass; other speculation was that the weapons were put on the plane at its previous stop in Cairo.