TSA struggles to fill self-defense classes

A crisis of confidence? Three years after TSA launched a self-defense program for flight attendants — to defend against terrorists, not groping passengers — organizers are struggling to fill class rolls, the Washington Post reported recently. With its emphasis on punching, kicking, and eye-gouging, the free one day program was originally promoted as a valuable alternative to permitting pilots to carry guns, but according to TSA only 1,750 flight-crew members have signed up — less than 1 percent of the 120,000 flight attendants and nearly 100,000 pilots who are eligible to take the course. “We are extremely frustrated,” said one official in the Air Marshal Service. “We need to do a better job of promoting this and finding better locations for flight attendants.” At one recent course — offered at ten sites nationwide — only two showed up, both of whom had previous self-defense instruction and neither of whom was a flight attendant. The main problem? Experts note that the classes are held at community colleges rather than at airports, and that airlines do not give employees time off to attend.