Of the 28,000 commercial airline flights that take to the skies on an average day in the United States, fewer than 1 percent are protected by on-board, armed federal air marshals. [...] That means a terrorist or other criminal bent on taking over an aircraft would be confronted by a trained air marshal on as few as 280 daily flights[.] The Transportation Security Administration [...] said the 280 number "grossly understates coverage by an order of magnitude" and that the number is "four digits," but he would not elaborate.
--CNN (snipped to be more concise)
If "some four-digit number" of the 28,000 commercial airline flights has an air marshal then at most 35.7% of them do.
The discrepancy?
These sources say the marshal service considers a flight "covered" even if a marshal is not on board -- as long as a law enforcement officer or pilot in possession of a firearm is on board, even if that person is flying for personal reasons. The "covered" designation includes pilots armed in the cockpit.
The firearms training program for pilots is budgeted at $25 million. And while it is popular among airline pilots, many complain that they have to spend as much as $3,000 of their own money for lodging and meals when they take the course.
By comparison, the federal air marshal budget this year is $720 million.
Holy #&@*, where is all that money going?
Posted by Matt Bruce at May 14, 2008 04:56 PM