Kudos to Congressman Mike Honda who incorporated this language into the 2016 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development Appropriations (THUD) Bill after reviewing AAI backgrounder below : It augments the Secure our Skies and STOP Act now pending: 

“Human Trafficking Training for Airline Personnel – Human trafficking is often facilitated by use of commercial air travel, due to its speed and convenience.  The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that there are 108,510 flight attendants in the U.S. who, if properly trained, can help law enforcement properly identify suspected victims and traffickers to intercept and restrict the movement of these criminal networks. The Committee is concerned about the limited efficacy of current online training for airline personnel and encourages the FAA to explore broad expert training for airline training staff at each major airline in the United States, which would include participation from trafficking survivors to help better understand the needs of victims. “

AAI White Paper Below

Background

 Human Trafficking is a multi-billion dollar business and traffickers move their victims frequently to keep them powerless. They often use the speed and convenience of commercial air travel. Airline flight crews, if properly trained, could become thousands of eyes and ears providing critical intelligence to law enforcement on potential trafficking situations. Legislation to require airlines to train staff is pending and could be made most effective by providing resources for live trainings on human trafficking to training staff of all 12 U.S. based airlines and 27 regional airlines.

Because air transport has the highest vulnerabilities among critical infrastructures, the urgency of effectively addressing this issue is evident. Traffickers also have interests in other high crimes that effect aircraft safety issues (drugs, weapons, terrorism, et al.)

The Secure our Skies Act of 2016 (HR 4430) and the Stop Trafficking on Planes (STOP) Act S 2642 require airlines to train front line employees on human trafficking specifically using the Blue Lightning protocol. Blue Lightning initiative launched in June 2013 by DHS, DOT and CBP to train airline personnel to identify potential trafficking situations and report their suspicions to federal law enforcement. It provides an on line training and training materials. Three airlines have signed an MOU to provide the on line training to employees – Delta, JetBlue and Silver Airways. This issue has active support of all flight attendant unions.

Problem

• Many airline professionals who have taken the on-line training have said they do not pay close attention to it as it is not emphasized by the training staff during annual training.
• Many airlines are hesitant to sign an MOU to utilize the Blue Lightning training as the training is quite long and time available in annual Emergency Procedure training is limited.
• Some airlines, like American Airlines have a written procedure, but since the issue is not emphasized in annual recurrent training – most employees are unaware of the procedure and do not follow it. (as evidenced in a recent case on a flight from Rome, where all 8 flight attendants suspected trafficking of an 7 year old Albanian girl, and told the pilots to follow the procedure and radio ahead to alert authorities. Pilots refused as they were not familiar with this procedure and did not want to cause trouble.

Recommendation

 Pending legislation should provide for a live Train the Trainer program for training staff of the 12 U. S. based airlines to ensure staff are sufficiently educated to communicate the importance of this protocol during annual training. Train the Trainer sessions should include the reality and breadth of human trafficking, stories from actual survivors and indicators for how to recognize and report potential trafficking incidents.