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  War on Terror: German Sky Marshals Feeling Grounded

War on Terror German Sky Marshals Feeling Grounded

By Juergen Dahlkamp

Part 2: "Endangered regions" and terror alerts

The unit told the teams how many short, medium and long-haul flights to take, how many scheduled and charter flights to go on and how often to venture into endangered regions like America or the Middle East.

They were issued a few terror alerts by the Federal Crime Police Office or Germany's foreign intelligence service, the BND (Bundesnachrichtendienst). The unit then assigned marshals to certain flights. But most of the time the officers chose their own destinations and times. The unit booked tickets via Lufthansa's internal security department.

The procedure hasn't changed, but the number of flights has, say the officers. First the management of the federal police authority noticed that rules on work times stipulated that no officer is allowed to work more than 12 hours a day. It takes longer than 12 hours to fly from Frankfurt to Buenos Aires or Manila, so for a while the teams only flew on medium-range or short-haul flights. In the battle over what came first -- work rules or the war on terror -- the former had clearly won. The unit was able to get around this bureaucratic nonsense with a trick, by declaring that regular shifts ended after 12 hours and were immediately followed by official on-call duty.

Banished to the cheap seats

But at present, say the officers, it isn't the police apparatus that is grounding sky marshals, it's Lufthansa itself, their biggest customer.

"During the football World Cup we had a team on almost every plane carrying fans because of course nothing could be allowed to happen at that time," said one of the officers. But things soon changed: The officer says that in November he flew on fewer than 10 days, and it will be the same in December. Sixteen days should be the norm, he says. The outlook for January is no better.

Tickets for intercontinental flights are cancelled most often, and getting first-class tickets is always a problem, says the officer. With such expensive tickets Lufthansa waits until the last minute in the hope of being able to sell them. The airline even cancelled sky marshals' ticket allocations on flights to endangered regions like the Middle East, "and that was shortly after the plans to attack several passenger jets were thwarted in England," said the officer.

Lufthansa spokesman Klaus Walther denied the accusations. "The federal police coordinates its missions with us," he said. "It's not the least bit true that fewer missions are being flown than before. We're leading in Europe in this respect." He said security concerns prevented him from saying more. The Interior Ministry said it never comments on the work of the elite unit.

However, a recent order to sky marshals from Inspektion 6 does leave a clear impression. It referred to "current difficulties with flight timetables."

One more senior official who declined to be named referred to "major problems," and said people were "pretty angry" that Lufthansa was relegating more and more sky marshals to budget seats. A Lufthansa pilot who declined to be named said, "Our company has to look at its bottom line." After all, a round-trip ticket from Frankfurt to New York in first class can cost €6,576 ($8,597).

Airlines feeling safe

If the anti-terror fighters are to be believed, however, they also waste a lot of time doing nothing, or going on training courses for eight days a month, rather than the required four. Some colleagues take vacation, others have 100 minus hours on their work account. There's even a waiting list to share out the work.

The federal government could try issuing order. But lawyers say its legal position is unclear. Lufthansa sees itself bound by a verbal agreement made by its Chief Executive Wolfgang Mayrhuber with former Interior Minister Schily.

Another well-known airline -- whose name can't be revealed for obvious security reasons -- doesn't even allow sky marshals on board. "We don't see the point," that airline says.

Several airlines wonder if sky marshals are so important. Attackers can't get through a locked cockpit door, according to one pilot. "That only applies if the door isn't open," says one of the officers. "At some point the pilot goes to the toilet, gets food brought in or chats with the stewardess."

The growing resistance to sky marshals is compounded by the unit's image problem. "You're just constantly going on holiday flights," colleagues tell them. It's true that the unit has never faced a real incident. But the job is still so tiring that many quit after two years and opt for a post on the ground. The constant time changes and the need to concentrate during the whole flight can be exhausting, especially at night. The agents often use caffeine tablets to stay awake, then hormone tablets to get to sleep after a flight.

That's why the unit finds it hard to attract many new recruits. The government wants to increase the number of sky marshals -- but that has been the ambition ever since the unit was founded. For it to be fulfilled, someone may have to hijack another plane.