Anti-hijacking Self-defense Classes for Flight Crew Members lack Students

A free program offered by the Transportation Security Administration has trained 1,750 flight-crew members, most of them flight attendants, since it began three years ago. The graduates represent less than 1 percent of the 120,000 flight attendants and nearly 100,000 pilots who are eligible to take the course.

Low attendance
The program, which TSA officials say is part of their effort to prevent hijackings, is designed to give flight crews several basic self-defense techniques and teach them to think about how to defend themselves and their cockpits.


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The courses, which are offered at 10 sites around the country, have not been heavily promoted by the government or airlines. They are held at community colleges, some far from airports and hard for flight crews to reach.

The airlines do not give crew members time off to attend the training, which means employees have to do it on their free time.
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Okay, folks. These classes need to be a) mandatory, b) accessible, and c) paid for. If they are mandatory, that will fix the problem of lack of promotion of them.

But what are the folks behind them thinking? Or the Airlines?