Why would Tom Ridge not sign of on it and how much longer will he be making the decisions?
EU carriers are already flying into the largest cities in the US, from a security point of view, there really is no harm in allowing them to fly onwards domestically, after all, the pax would be screened by the TSA just like today. As a matter of fact, one could argue, that since the US gov is doing the screening, that its as safe. Secondly, it has been a while since a EU airline was hijacked, terrorist prefer US air carriers, since most of their ire is with the US.
Nope, I do not think it is a security issue, otherwise, why did we allow cabotage in ANC. Where was Tom Ridge then?
I think it will be a monetary issue and it will be interesting to see what happens in Euroland, once the accession countries makes it into the EU. They have much lower pay and worse working conditions. Already we have seen issues with regards to Ryan Air and the relatively lax rules from the Irish CAA.