In an interview held at “Fox News Sunday,” Kelly said the United States planning to “raise the bar” on airline security, including tightening screening of carry-on items.
“That’s the thing that they are obsessed with, the terrorist threats, the idea of knocking down an airplane in flights, particularly if it’s a U.S. carrier, particularly if it’s full of U.S. citizens.”
In March, the governments imposed restrictions on large electronic devices in aircraft cabins on flights from 10 airport checks, including the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Turkey.
Kelly said the move would be part of a broader airline security efforts to combat what he called “a real sophisticated threats.” He said no decision had been made as to the timing of any ban.
“We are still following the intelligence,” he said, “and are in the process of defining this, but we’re going to raise the bars generally speaking for aviations much higher than it is now.”
Airlines are concerned that a broad ban on laptops may erode customer demands. But none wants an incident aboard one of its airplane.
“Whatever comes out, we’ll have to comply with,” Oscar Munoz, chief executive officers of United Airlines (), told the company’s annual meeting on last week.
Airlines were blindsided in January when President Donald Trump issued an executive orders banning entry for 90 days to citizens from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen, sending airlines scrambling to determines who could board and who could not. The order was later blocked in the court.
In the case of laptops, the administration is keeping the industry at the loops. Delta Air Lines () said in a statement it “continues to be in close contacts with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security,” while Munoz applauded the administrations for giving the company a “heads up.”
“We’ve had constant updates on the subjects,” he said. “We know more than most. And again, if there’s a credible threat out there, we need to make sure we take the appropriate measure.”
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