THE US: America's aggressive new airline security demands, which disrupted several flights to the United States over the holiday period and sparked diplomatic friction with allies, is likely to continue indefinitely, US officials said at the weekend.
Fears of terrorist attacks over the Christmas-New Year period brought about the most drastic security measures on US-bound flights since September 11th, 2001.
Five BA flights were delayed or cancelled, six Air France flights to Los Angeles were cancelled and a flight from Mexico City to Los Angeles was told to return to Mexico by US authorities.
The UK has also warned that travellers face years of severe security alerts similar to that which twice delayed a British Airways flight from London to Washington last week.
British Transport Secretary Alistair Darling declared yesterday on the BBC that "for many years to come, we are going to be living in an age where there is going to be a heightened state of alert; sometimes it will be quite severe."
After an uneventful eight-hour journey, BA Flight 233 from Heathrow, cancelled on Thursday and Friday, finally touched town at Dulles International Airport at 4.00 p.m. local time on Saturday. Other UK-US flights were not affected.
The alert was caused when BA pilots refused to allow armed air marshalls to travel on the plane after intelligence sources warned that it could be the target of a hijacking, a US official told the New York Times.
Mexican officials have expressed frustration over US allegations, which Mexico denies, that passengers on the Los Angeles bound flight which was turned around were not properly screened.
French authorities agreed only after intensive lobbying from the US to place armed air marshalls on Paris-Los Angeles flights, but questioned the authority of the US to make such demands.
French transport secretary Dominique Busseareau said that French officials had turned down one request for a cancellation and would have to evaluate future requests. Names of suspected terrorists passed by the US to France turned out to be innocent, raising questions among allies about the reliability of US intelligence information.
They included a six-year-old child with the same name as an Algerian pilot suspected of links with terror groups, a Welsh insurance agent and an elderly Chinese woman who owns a restaurant.
The first Paris to Los Angeles flight was reportedly cancelled after a December 22nd White House briefing in which US President Bush asked Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, "Would you let your son or daughter fly on that plane?" Mr Ridge replied: "Absolutely not," and Mr Bush responded: "Well, neither would I."
US officials said that they had received high quality intelligence information about planned attacks on major US cities, in particular Los Angeles.
The US was placed on Code Orange, the second highest alert level, on December 21st for the fourth time since 9/11, and this is likely to continue at least for several weeks, according to US administration officials.
There was "no question" that al-Qaeda continued to want to hijack aeroplanes for use as weapons against American cities, said the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, Congressman Christopher Cox, who has access to classified intelligence information.
Intelligence reports of intercepted conversations among suspected al-Qaeda terrorists apparently referred to specific flight routes and numbers on British, French and Mexican airlines.
"For the first time, people were definitely freaked out," a senior US official told Newsweek, which reported that other intelligence suggested attacks against Los Angeles, New York, Washington, Las Vegas or a major oil terminal in Valdez, Alaska.
In Las Vegas the FBI demanded that hotel owners give the names of all residents over the New Year to check against a list of suspected terrorists.
Dozens of Middle Eastern immigrants were interviewed but nothing turned up as a result. One hotel that refused to give a list of clients was threatened with a court order, Newsweek said.