Transatlantic passengers travelling with Royal Jordanian from Shannon Airport can unexpectedly find themselves sitting beside an armed air marshal on their flight to New York or Chicago.
Along with the Israeli national airline, El-Al, Royal Jordanian pioneered on-board security in the 1970s. Jordan's national airline made Shannon Airport its European transit hub for transatlantic flights in May after establishing a base there in January, 1999.
Mr Maen Alsaleh, regional director for Ireland and the UK, said an average of four marshals are on board for each flight. "It is a costly business but it is incorporated in our fares. I think we will be an example for other airlines," he said.
Yesterday, President Bush expanded the US air marshal programme which was originally created in the 1970s to stop hijackings to and from Cuba. They are armed with handguns which use a special ammunition designed not to puncture the hull of the aircraft when discharged.
Mr Alsaleh said Jordan air marshals were recruited from a special forces section of the army and were highly-trained personnel. "They could be any passenger. They are in ordinary plain clothes. Even the crew sometimes does not know them."
The airline also carries out body searches, luggage sealing and hand luggage searches but does not seal its cockpit. "If you have proper sky marshals, there is no need. Nobody can illegally enter the cockpit, no matter what happens."
The air marshal programme has had mixed results. A Jordanian air marshal was successful in preventing a Syrian from hijacking a plane in July 2000 when he shot the hijacker in the back of the head. But the hijacker dropped a live grenade which exploded, injuring 15 people.
Last May, one of the passengers filed a $10 million lawsuit in the US, accusing the airline of security errors.
In 1985, a Royal Jordanian jet was hijacked and, two days later, blown up in Beirut following the release of its 74 passengers and crew members. One of the five hijackers, a Lebanese national, who received a 30-year sentence in the US, forced the head of a sky marshal into a box of ice in the plane's galley while demanding to know where the other marshals had put their guns.
Mr Alsaleh added the company would be putting proposals to Aer Lingus on a passenger sharing agreement. "We cover the whole of the Middle East, the Gulf area, the Indian sub-continent and the Far East. It might be a good idea if we can co-operate with them."