Union, Democrats demand flight attendant security training

More than 100 flight attendants rallied on Capitol Hill Wednesday as Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., reintroduced legislation that would require airlines to give attendants mandatory counterterrorism training. Boxer introduced similar legislation last year, but it was weakened by language in the Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill that made such training voluntary for the airlines.

"It is unconscionable that the decision of who should be trained and to what extent they should be trained should be left to the airlines," said Alice Hoglan, a former United Airlines flight attendant. Her son, Mark Bingham, died during the Sept. 11 attacks as a passenger on United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed in southwestern Pennsylvania.

TSA Deputy Director Steven McHale told a House panel Wednesday that the agency will look at strengthening flight attendant training guidelines that the agency issued in 2002.

"We are going to develop training for the flight attendants," he said. "We're going to have that hopefully piloted later this fiscal year and be ready to deliver it next year. In that process, we're actually looking at what is the base level and what will an advanced level course do, and how the two will fit together. So we are taking another look at it."

The presidents of the Association of Flight Attendants, the Association of Professional Flight Attendants and The Transport Workers Union Local 556 plan to give TSA about 10,000 letters written by flight attendants demanding that what they call inadequate security training programs by airlines be examined.

"On September 11, 2001, 25 heroic flight attendants lost their lives trying to protect their passengers and the cockpit," said AFA president Patricia Friend. "Implementing comprehensive, mandatory security training is the only way to give flight attendants and our passengers a fighting chance in the event of another terrorist attack. We owe it to the memory of the flight attendants that we lost, and we owe it to the flight attendants who go to work every day."