New screenings to start for all US-bound airline passengers

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — All incoming flights to the United States will be subject to new security screening procedures, including both American citizens and foreigners possibly facing security interviews from airline employees, a U.S. government official said today.

The announcement from the U.S. Transportation Security Administration comes after five global long-haul airlines – Air France, Cathay Pacific, EgyptAir, Emirates and Lufthansa – said they would begin the new security interviews starting Thursday.

A sixth carrier, Royal Jordanian, said it would begin the new procedures in mid-January after U.S. authorities granted RJ's request for a delay in implementing the measures.

The airlines, however, offered different descriptions of how the interviews would take place, ranging from another form a traveler would have to fill out to actually being questioned by an airline employee.

The new security measures come after the Trump administration previously rolled out a laptop ban and travel bans that have thrown the international travel industry into disarray.

The new rules also come at the end of a 120-day deadline for airlines to meet new U.S. regulations after the ban on laptops in airplane cabins of some Mideast airlines being lifted.

"The security measures affect all individuals, international passengers and U.S. citizens, traveling to the United States from a last point of departure international location," said Lisa Farbstein, a spokeswoman for the TSA. "These new measures will impact all flights from airports that serve as last points of departure locations to the United States."