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Today's News , 2003
• Abel named COO at Cannon Express Air Cargo Bills Advance in House, Senate  Reprint permission
The House Aviation Subcommittee approved legislation that would allow cargo pilots to join passenger pilots in being allowed to carry guns in the cockpit. Subcommittee Chairman Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., called the bill a logical extension of a law enacted last year that permitted passenger pilots to be armed. "This particular exclusion has left a gaping hole in aviation security, in my opinion," Mica said. "Terrorists looking to inflict damage on our country know we have in fact federalized the passenger screening system. We have reinforced cockpit doors, deployed thousands of air marshals and armed passenger airline pilots. We know that terrorists are not dumb. We know that terrorists shop for our weakest security link." Separately the same week, the full Senate passed the Air Cargo Security Act, comprehensive air cargo security legislation sponsored by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas. The legislation, which deals largely with cargo carried in the belly of passenger planes, now is in the hands of the House. According to a House Transportation Committee spokesman, the committee has not set a course for considering the legislation. Among the bill's components are improving the known-shipper program, standardizing inspections of air cargo facilities and developing a Transportation Security Administration training program for people who handle air cargo.
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