U.S. Airline Pilots to Seek Terror Boycott

The American delegation to a meeting of an international pilots association will seek a worldwide airlines boycott of nations found to be harboring or sponsoring terrorists, the head of the U.S. group said today.

The call to stop flying to certain nations follows a string of terrorist attacks involving airports and airlines, including last week’s bombing of a TWA airliner over Greece and the suspected bombing of a Mexicana Airlines jet March 31.

Capt. Hank Duffy of Delta Airlines, president of the 34,000-strong U.S. Air Line Pilots Assn., said the U.S. delegation will seek a boycott resolution by the International Federation of Air Line Pilots Assns., which began its annual meeting today.

In a radio interview, Duffy said U.S. pilots believe that it will be easy to get a boycott resolution adopted at the 66-nation convention representing about 60,000 pilots.

‘Just Like . . . Maintenance’

“The boycott resolution is a facilitating resolution. The principal officers of the international federation will decide who the offending nations are--the definition of an offending nation being one that either harbors terrorists or sponsors terrorism.

“It would be incumbent upon a member nation to present the principal officers with evidence that there is an offending nation, and then the principal officers would instigate the boycott,” he said.

“Protecting the security of our flights is just like protecting the maintenance of our flights and the basic airworthiness of the airplane,” he said.

Duffy did not name any nations but said it was essential to match security to the new level of terrorism.

“It doesn’t matter how good you fly if the plane is vulnerable to this type of activity (terrorism). . . . Something’s got to be done about it,” Duffy said.

Some pilots said they favor the more stringent security measures of the Israeli airline El Al, even though it is costly and time-consuming to check each passenger closely.