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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, December 26, 2003

Paris-LA flights to resume: Air France

Air France flights between Paris and Los Angeles will get back to normal on Friday following the cancellation of six flights in the past two days for security concerns, the airline announced Thursday.


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Air France flights between Paris and Los Angeles will get back to normal on Friday following the cancellation of six flights in the past two days for security concerns, the airline announced Thursday.

The French government on Wednesday ordered the cancellation of the six flights, to and from Los Angeles, after United States officials warned that the flights might be used in a terrorist attack against the US.

In Paris, the canceled flights, AF068 and AF070, were scheduled to take off on Wednesday, and AF068 on Thursday.

In Los Angeles, the canceled flight, AF069 was to fly out on Wednesday, and AF071 and AF069 on Thursday.

In Paris, each passenger on Wednesday's AF068 was thoroughly checked but no element of threat was found, said the French Interior Ministry.

Officials in Los Angeles said the US Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Homeland Security were probing an unspecified threat, but refused to disclose details. United States media reports said as many as six of the passengers to Los Angeles had names similar to suspected al-Qaeda and Taliban members, and one might have been a trained pilot. But French officials said careful and thorough checks had found nothing to support the US information relating to the canceled flights after all passengers had been questioned and screened. French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin and US Secretary of State Colin Powell spoke by phone on the subject on Wednesday, said a spokeswoman of the French Foreign Ministry on Thursday. "They have been in very regular contact within the scope of fighting terrorism," she said.

The alert came as US authorities stepped up surveillance on all flights arriving in the United States. The government on Sunday raised the nation's terrorist threat level from "elevated," or yellow, to "high," or orange.


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