As a record 550,000 air passengers joined the new year getaway, the Government said that plain-clothes marshals were being deployed along with extra check-in surveillance after a dramatic increase in the state of alert in the US.

The plainclothes agents, likely to be armed with
low-velocity ammunition that should not break through the fuselage, would join transAtlantic flights and could patrol other routes to regions where al-Qaeda was particularly active such as the Middle East and East Africa, experts said last night.

Ministers said that the moves would make it safer to fly, but pilots described it as the worst thing the Government could have done and raised the prospect of a boycott of marshalled flights.

The British Airline Pilots Association said that it did not want guns on planes. Jim McAuslan, general secretary, said: “We believe this will do more harm than good.”

The Department for Transport refused to say whether marshals had begun work but its announcement with the Home Office was designed to send a message that British vigilance had increased. Plans to put marshalls on commercial aircraft were first announced last December.

Fears for airline safety have grown since the discovery of suspected shoe-bomb equipment in Gloucester last month and the charging of a man for possession of explosives.

Alistair Darling, the Transport Secretary, said: “Security is kept constantly under review and it is essential that we take all reasonable steps to deter terrorist activities.”

David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, added: “The last few days have seen the United States increase their general threat and security levels and what we are proposing is a proportionate and appropriate level of response at a time when the threat to both our countries and around the world remains real and serious. The situation is not one where people should be afraid to fly.”

Professor Paul Wilkinson, from the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at St Andrews University, said the move was sensible given that al-Qaeda still planned to target civil aviation. Security at many airports were still not tight enough, making on-board security important, he said.

But David Learmount, of Flight International magazine, said of the air marshal plan: “Exactly what is going to be achieved by having someone on board which will mean there are two armed people? “Gunfight at the OK Corral straight down the aisle of an aircraft? I think it’s stupid.”

Patrick Mercer, the Tory Homeland Security spokesman, welcomed the move. Fears of an airborne attack on the Vatican over Christmas added to indications that terrorists were actively considering an airborne attack, he said.

He added: “Hand-in-hand with this has got to be a public information campaign to make sure that passengers are aware of what sky marshals are. If an armed person leaps up and makes themselves known as a marshal, who is to say a member of the public is not not going to have a go?”

The US raised security levels last week to high. Intercepted communications prompted Tom Ridge, the cabinet member for homeland security, to warn: “Extremists abroad were anticipating near-term attacks that they believe will rival — or exceed — the scope and impact of those we experienced in New York, at the Pentagon, and in Pennsylvania two years ago.”

Christopher Cox, the Californian Republican who chairs a congressional committee on homeland security, yesterday said that the elevated alert would last into the New Year. It was based on a sizeable “spike” in intelligence activity that did not name specific dates, times or places, but it included specific references to attempts to destroy targets in the US over the holidays.

The US started putting guards on flights in the 1970s to thwart hijackings to Cuba, and again in 1985 after TWA Flight 847 was hijacked. On El-Al, which has had guards for 30 years, marshals are seated anonymously with radio links so they can warn the flight deck of trouble. If the pilot receives a signal they have orders to roll and power-dive in a bid to overbalance anyone standing. Oxygen masks drop to the sky marshals’ seats only, giving them an extra edge.

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