BA in talks over anti-missile defence

Friday, 5 September 2003 12:00 AM

British Airways is reportedly looking into fitting anti-missile systems to its planes to protect against terrorist attacks.

Europe's largest airline announced today that it is in talks with aircraft manufacturers about ways to protect its fleet from surface-to-air missile attacks.

"Our security team has been talking to the manufacturers -- Boeing and Airbus -- about anti-missile technology," said a British Airways spokeswoman, adding that talks had begun several months ago.

However, she stressed that the discussions were exploratory and no decisions had yet been made.

Israeli airliners are believed to carry anti-missile systems, but most of the 12,000 commercial planes flying worldwide have no systems fitted.

The systems are very expensive to fit and there are questions regarding how well a large, slow flying plane can be protected.

An Israeli airliner was targeted last November by two heat-seeking surface-to-air missiles as it left Kenya but managed to narrowly evade them.

Fears of attacks on commercial flights using portable missile launchers have increased in recent months.

UK flights to Kenya were suspended in May because of the threat of terrorist attack and only fully resumed on Thursday.

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