U.S. regulator to require secondary cockpit barrier on commercial airplanes

U.S. officials said Wednesday they will require new airline planes to have a second barrier to make it harder for passengers to break into the cockpit when the main door is open.

The Federal Aviation Administration rule will apply to commercial planes made after mid-2025.

The rule will affect airlines that operate scheduled flights, but not charter operators.

Officials called the rule an important step to give pilots more protection.

"No pilot should have to worry about an intrusion on the flight deck," said David Boulter, the FAA's acting associate administrator for safety.

After the hijacking of four U.S. airplanes on Sept. 11, 2001, the FAA adopted standards for flight deck security to make them resistant to forcible intrusion and unauthorized entry.

Congress directed the FAA in 2018 to require secondary barriers to cockpits, but the agency did not issue a proposal until last August, after it received recommendations from aircraft makers and pilot groups.

The Air Line Pilots Association, which represents more than 74,000 pilots at 40 U.S. and Canadian airlines including Air Canada pilots as a result of a union merger announced last month shared a statement in response to a CBC News question praising the FAA "for moving to implement this live-saving measure after years of needless delay."

Retrofitting older planes not mandatory

The cockpit is more vulnerable to attackers when the door is opened for pilots to take a bathroom break or get their meals.

A secondary barrier is intended "to slow such an attack long enough so that an open flightdeck door can be closed and locked before an attacker could reach the flightdeck," the FAA said in the rule, published in the Federal Register.

The FAA estimated that each secondary barrier will cost $35,000 US to buy and install.

"Every day, pilots and flight crews transport millions of Americans safely and today we are taking another important step to make sure they have the physical protections they deserve," said U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

There is no provision requiring airlines to retrofit current planes.

Pilot unions asked the FAA to extend the requirement for secondary barriers to all airline planes, including older ones. They said covering new planes only would create a known security gap.

However, industry trade group Airlines for America and United Airlines argued that current security steps are effective. They asked that secondary barriers be required only on future types of planes meaning that new copies of FAA-approved planes such as Boeing 737 Max and Airbus A320 jets would not need secondary barriers, even if they were built after mid-2025.

The FAA said Congress was clear that the requirement should apply to all new planes.

Pilot groups also asked for the rule to take effect in one year, while the airline industry, Boeing and Airbus asked for three years to comply. The FAA said two years was plenty aircraft makers were given less time to reinforce cockpit doors after the September 2001 terror attacks.

The FAA said Delta Air Lines and United have voluntarily added secondary barriers to some of their planes.