“…violent, dangerous, possibly deranged or drug-induced passengers are the responsibility of fl ight attendants. Arming them with even small knives is a grave mistake…”


Allowing small knives is a slippery slope, which may well end with what former TSA Administrator Kip Hawley advocated, to wit, extending the policy to include “battle axes (and) machetes,” (Ahlers, Mike. “Former TSA chief backs ‘knife’ decision; suggests axes and machetes, too.” CNN. Web. 7 March 2013.) There is no reason to put flight attendants, pilots, and most of all passengers in a position where they may be defending themselves or the entire airplane against armed attackers.


Typical Flight Attendant Duties Exacerbated According to internal American Airlines reporting, there were nearly 1,200 reported instances of passenger misconduct in 2012 alone. Flight attendants have the unenviable task of addressing and de-escalating a myriad of in-flight disruptions. During a US Airways flight from Los Angeles to Phoenix in April 2012, an unruly passenger


stormed the aisle, attempting to drive the drink cart into a flight attendant, while verbally threatening all those on board (Nelson, Sara. “A No-Fly Zone for Knives.” The New York Times. 27 March 2013.) Introducing weapons into situations such as this one makes our job needlessly difficult and dangerous. In the absence of a Federal Air Marshal, there is no readily accessible official with police powers on board an airplane. Violent, dangerous, possibly deranged or drug-induced passengers are the responsibility of flight attendants. Arming them with even small knives is a grave mistake.


Conclusion


While the APFA strongly supports the periodic review of the TSA’s prohibited items list, removing knives from that list is a non-starter. However remote the risks as calculated by the TSA are, there are simply too many scenarios that make knives a very serious threat to passengers, crew, and the aircraft. APFA joins many industry stakeholders in demanding that all knives remain on the prohibited items list and that all future changes to the list be made only with our consultation.


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