Airlines Upset At Court Attempt To Stop Data Sharing With U.S.

"If we do not follow the US rules we will be fined and if we follow them we will go to jail," said Giovanni Bisignani, director general of global airlines body IATA. "This just gives you an idea of the extent to which governments are unable to have a dialogue, even on something as important as security -- and we are in the middle," he said. Under existing rules, airlines face fines of $6,000 per passenger if they do not share the information. The 25-nation European Union and United States have pledged to find a new deal preserving the content of the anti-terrorism agreement within a four-month deadline set by the court. An EU Commission spokesman said on Thursday it was confident a deal would be reached by the end of September. "If there is no European deal, the national rules will apply," the spokesman said. But Bisignani, representing 265 airlines preparing to hold their annual meeting in Paris next Monday, said the wrangle stemmed from a wider failure of transatlantic coordination that is hurting the world's airline and tourism industry. "We have a few months to find an agreement but this gives you a picture of how much harmonization is lacking between Europe and the United States," Bisignani told a news briefing. Full article: http://ca.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-06-01T120345Z_01_L01556672_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-AIRLINES-IATA-COL.XML&archived=False

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