ATTENTION: AIRLINE PILOTS!

While membership in the Airline Pilots Security Alliance (www.secure-skies.org) has grown considerably since our humble beginnings in the days following September 11th, 2001, the mission of APSA remains singular: to maximize security aboard commercial aircraft through the implementation of sound, well-studied and well-balanced strategies, specifically including the arming of select, volunteer airline pilots with firearms.

To continue our growth and to maximize our effectiveness, the APSA Board of Directors has created an important new leadership opportunity: the APSA Pilot Liaison. These airline Pilot Liaison’s will represent APSA at each of the pilot bases for each airline.

The core mission of the APSA Liaison will be threefold:

1. Introduce fellow crewmembers to APSA, answering questions, creating awareness, and educating others about the mission of APSA;
2. Bolster support for APSA by encouraging (a) membership enlistment and (b) financial giving; and
3. Serve as a conduit for APSA senior leadership, providing timely feedback on important issues and perspectives from locally domiciled personnel.

If you’re an airline pilot familiar with the goals and mission of APSA, and would like to make a substantive, meaningful contribution to this critically important (and winning!) cause, please contact us now.   Be sure to include your name, physical and e-mail addresses, contact phone numbers, airline, domicile, and a brief statement explaining your background and motivation to make a difference.

Liaison Briefing Paper

First, let me apologize for the fact we’ve sent little (alright, NO) LIAISON ONLY info out to our liaisons since I took the job as APSA President.  We have spent literally every spare moment writing, lobbying for and working with Senator Bunning and Congressman Wilson to get the TCA 2004 introduced in Congress.  To be honest, there’s been little for our liaison force to do until the bill came out and we don’t want to load you down with “busy work.”

But, now that the bill is out, everything has changed!  The success or failure of the FFDO program is now in our hands!  The bill must get out of the Commerce Committee/Aviation SubCommittee and then to the floor, where it must be voted on and passed.  And all of that must happen before the end of the year, or the bill will die and we will have to start the process over again.  That would be an enormous undertaking, and, it probably won’t happen!

The primary mission of our liaisons (beyond contacting your Congressional reps multiple times in multiple ways (which we assume you are doing regularly)), is to UNDERSTAND THE BILL and talk this issue up to your fellow crews.  There is a lot of misinformation out there regarding what the bill will allow, and it is up to you to have the facts and get crews engergized!  Go to “The Cockpit Technical Corrections Act”, “Rumor Control” on the site for specifics.

We also very much need you to make this an issue in the press.  Call your local stations and ask them why they are not covering the fact that almost 3 years after 9/11, less than 2% of our pilots are armed because TSA is sabotaging the program.  Refer them to the www.secure-skies.org.

Our primary opponents are the TSA, the Air Transport Association and, unfortunately, ALPA leadership, which is withholding support for the bill.  We have strategies to deal with all three, but this will NOT be an easy fight.  It will require attention, stamina and continued commitment -  every aircraft change, lounge bulletins, computer bulletin board messages, etc.!   Those of you who are ALPA pilots, please encourage your fellow crews to demand ALPA leadership get behind this effort.

The other opponents I mention are NOT opposing this bill passively.  Read the last sentence again, please.  I can’t say more than that right now.

We are concerned volunteers for the program will be exhausted by early autumn unless the law passes and the disaffected volunteers come forward.  If the law doesn’t pass, the FFDO program may be defunded and eventually die.  Time is of the essence!

On another note, as I said above, this program is ours to make or break.  We can break it by not getting this law passed, or we can break it by conducting ourselves unprofessionally or overzealously, particularly if we are FFDO’s by not being “quiet professionals.” If you are concerned your, or an FFDO’s actions or demeanor, is not quite in keeping with being a “quiet professional” consider that the way FFDO’s are perceived can break the program at this point.   If  in doubt, it’s probably best to be soft-spoken about the FFDO role and to answer other crewmembers questions openly and honestly, recognizing SSI doesn’t mean taking a superior attitude with your brother pilots or flight attendants.  Humility is a virtue.  Thanks.

Every liaison! Please email me at david_Mackett@secure-skies.org and tell me what airline and what base(s) you can cover to update our information - and include your snail mail address.  We may be sending you a package for your crew lounges in a couple of weeks.  Also remind me of what BASES your airline operates, so we can coordinate coverage of all of them.