The French union of Airline Pilots last night said it “regretted to announce” that Air France “softened” some security measures and “cancelled” others on Middle East flights earlier this year. The union said in a communique the changes were made on a general management and operations directorate decision and were put into effect March 21. A union spokesman said Air France recently forbade its pilots, leaving Orly for Tel Aviv, to have passengers identify their baggage. He said it would have been against company regulations. Later, Air France “confirmed” that “contrary to certain allegations, appropriate security measures have never ceased to be applied to flights serving the Middle East.”
“These measures were recently reinforced, and as far as the flight from Paris to Tel Aviv of May 30 is concerned, Air France “strictly applied, as much at Rome as at Orly, the precautions observed by companies in general,” the company said. Air France admitted, however, that non-hand luggage was not examined Tuesday night at the departure from Rome. Each passenger was simply asked to identify his suitcases at the foot of the plane before reloading. Air France said its actions were not different from those of other companies serving Tel Aviv.
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