TORONTO, Nov. 6 (UPI) -- Air Canada said any passenger connected to travel to Yemen would be pulled from flights if extra screening ordered could not keep up with flight schedules.
The airline, in a memo to staff, said any resident of Yemen or passengers with connecting flights or a starting point or destination point connected to Yemen would be subjected to additional screening before being allowed to board an airplane. In addition, the airline said it would not hold planes at boarding gates to allow for the extra security measures, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. reported Saturday.
That meant if the screening for Yemen-connected passengers took too long, the airline said they would be booked on later flights.
The extra security was ordered due to parcel bombs originating in Yemen that were found recently in the cargo holds of passenger planes. The parcels were addressed to synagogues in Chicago.
Ihsaan Gardee, executive director of Muslim lobby group CAIR-CAN, said the security directive was a clear case of racial profiling.
"Profiling assumes there are innate characteristics that are a predictor of criminality, and this is a slippery slope into racism," he said.
Former Canadian immigration officer Arne Kislenko said the profiling accusation was beside the point. The target of the extra security was persons connected to a country where al-Qaeda members are operating.
"There's probably intelligence communities -- American, Canadian and others -- who have information about specific threats. And they more than likely involve Yemeni nationals traveling to the U.S. or elsewhere on Western airlines," he said.
