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Where are all the air marshals?

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Where are all the air marshals?

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There's a 95 percent chance Senior Editor Christine Sarkis is thinking about travel right now. Follow her on Instagram @postcartography and Twitter @ChristineSarkis.

Christine Sarkis is an SATW-award-winning journalist and executive editor at SmarterTravel. Her stories have also appeared on USA Today, Conde Nast Traveler, Huffington Post, and Business Insider. Her advice has been featured in dozens of print and online publications including The New York Times, Conde Nast Traveler, and People magazine. She has also shared travel tips on television and radio shows including Good Morning America, Marketplace, and Here & Now. Her work has been published in the anthologies Spain from a Backpack and The Best Women's Travel Writing 2008. She is currently working on a travel memoir.

The Handy Item I Always Pack: The Trtl Pillow. It's easy to pack and comfortable, and makes it so I can actually sleep on flights.

Ultimate Bucket List Experience: Seeing the Aurora Borealis from the comfort of somewhere warm, like a glass igloo or hot spring.

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A CNN article estimates that fewer than one percent of flights are protected by air marshals. Though the Transportation Security Administration doesn’t make public the number of flights air marshals cover, a number this low suggests there’s a breakdown in the system somewhere.

CNN did its own investigation for this story and spoke with a number of pilots and current and former air marshals—all of whom remained anonymous. Pilots report that they’ve been seeing fewer marshals aboard flights, and marshals themselves say the American public would be shocked by how few air marshals are flying. They also question where the budget is going when the number of marshals is dropping.

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The story includes a response by the federal air marshal program, which basically says there’s nothing to worry about. But it rings hollow in the context of the story.

This news won’t do much to help you feel safer while flying, but the hope seems to be that drawing attention to the problem may bring about a speedier solution.

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