Just a quick question, because I remember after 9/11 sky marshals were on all domestic flights… Are they still on the flights? I’d assume they are, but I’m not sure.
I don’t think they were ever on all domestic flights.
A pilot aquaintance of mine told me they were just on direct flights to and from D.C.
Just an anecdote, no cite, so I may be wrong.
Why? Got something in mind? I don’t think this is a question anybody would be able to realistically answer or should be answered.
Just wondering because I am flying with a nervous passenger in a couple weeks and I’d like to be able to reassure her.
Let’s look at it another way… how many flights are in the air at once?
How many sky marshals are there?
It appears to be a secret, and the feds won’t talk. However, google turned up USA today article:
This story puts it at 40, as of 14 months ago.
“(Some industry experts guess the current number of marshals hovers around 40 — enough for some international flights — and predict the new force could number 4,000.)”
http://www.usatoday.com/travel/vacations/2002/2002-01-10-marshals-training.htm
Have we gotten the 4,000 yet? I dunno. Be nice if we did.
30,000 flights per day. I don’t know how many flights the average plane makes in a day, so I don’t know how adequate 30,000 is.
If we DO have 4,000 air marshals (and hey, maybe we do, it’s not that hard to re-train a cop, soldier or security guard to do this job), back of the envelope math says that we will get 1 air marshal per plane if there are 7.5 flights per plane, per day. If there are more flights than that per day, we get more than 1 marshal per flight, and if there are less flights than that per day, we get less than 1 marshal per flight.
After 9/11 the government allocated $141 million in funding to hire and train new sky marshals, and the cost is now estimated at over $400 million per year. There are approximately 4,000 sky marshals today; so given that tens of thousands of flights take off from or leave the US every day, and that marshals fly in pairs, it’s obvious there aren’t marshals on every flight. This site provides a helpful overview of the air marshal program from just last month, and the problems that have emerged with it. It says, in part:
So the government determines what flights are most at risk and puts marshals on them.
But that would mean we have over 15,000 Air Marshals, and I just don’t think that’s correct.
Oh wait, does it mean 50% of “high priority” flights? That could still be a pretty small number.
Just fly El-Al. There are at least three armed, undercover, military men on every flight. The screening process takes over an hour involving an interview, X-ray of your bag, bomb detection and such, all before you get your boarding pass.
I never felt so safe on or off the ground before.
So where can I book an El-Al flight to Denton, TX?
There ARE many more Air Marshals flying now than before 9/11. They are not on all flights, nor even most of them. But they do show up quite frequently on flights to and from certain cities (and no, I’m not saying which cities). And if you think that you can pick them out (ie look for muscular young men with buzz-cuts) you are wrong. They blend in amazingly well.
For the OP, just tell your nervous flier that Air Marshals are much more prevalant now. And if she’s worried about a hijacking, you can tell her that by the first week of April ALL cockpit doors on US-flagged carriers will have been changed. The new doors are bulletproof and cannot be opened from the cabin without permission from up front.
El-Al security doesn’t start at the airport, does it? I had heard (you know, from “them”) that ticket buyers are given at least a rudimentary background check when they buy, and because of this you cannot buy day-of or short notice tickets. I thought they also checked your destination info if you were flying into Israel- where are you staying, with whom, etc.
Safest airline in the world, in terms of terrorism. Unless, of course, you are on a flight that actually gets hijacked. Israel is one country that says “we don’t negotiate with terrorists” and they mean it.
Yes, that means 50% of “high priority flights.” There are only 4,000 marshals, and since they work in pairs it’s a relatively small number of flights they are on. For reasons of practicality, there’s no reason to have them on every single puddle-jumper and Dubuque-to-Podunk flight that doesn’t get close to any potential targets. The government, for security reasons, does not reveal what the criteria are for “high priority,” but one can probably assume this means ones in and out of Reagan National in DC, cross-country and international routes in and out of major coastal cities, and many flights from South America.