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 The Homeland Security Act called for mandatory training provisions for flight attendants. Lawmakers recognized the fact that a partially trained crew is more likely to fail than if the entire crew is trained. Armed pilots and the possibility of an armed air marshal creates the necessity that all flight crew are trained to know where they need to be and what their role is in neutralizing terrorists. Failure in this area could lead to unnecessary casualties and a higher success rate for terrorists.
The security training is not merely a self defense course, it contains important elements relating to communication between crew, psychology of terrorists and keeping passengers calm and out of harms way. Like virtually every other industry, there are flight attendants who may be unable to perform the more physical self defense portions of the training. This is fine, but it is crucial that they be able to work with the other crew members and perform the other tasks that are part of the training. It is a team effort and if the entire team doesn't know the play, the team loses. AFA supports the mandatory training authorized by Congress. The carriers have been trying to make this a voluntary program and even have the flight attendants themselves pay for the training. AFA understands the troubled financial situations of some of the carriers, however their attempts to minimize the need of security training for flight attendants is reprehensible and irresponsible. The fact remains that not everyone who has access to the aircraft is subjected to a security check. It's been well over a year since September 11th and a box cutter, like the ones used on September 11th, was found in the seat pocket of an airplane at Logan airport in January of 2003. Flight attendants are indeed the last line of defense in the aircraft cabin and all flight attendants must receive adequate security training.
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