A woman who stowed away on a flight from New York to France last week managed to do so without a passport, much less a boarding pass, federal prosecutors said on Thursday. Svetlana Dali, 57, exploited weaknesses in the security system at Kennedy International Airport during the busiest period of the year for air travel by blending in with crowds of boarding travelers, prosecutors said. First, she infiltrated a flight crew and passed through a checkpoint with them. Then, she slipped past Delta Air Lines employees, who failed to ask for a boarding pass, and onto a fully booked plane, they said. While on the plane Ms. Dali attempted to avoid detection during the seven-hour flight to Charles de Gaulle Airport near Paris by ducking into the aircraft’s bathrooms. Dali, who is believed to have migrated to the United States from Russia, was arraigned in federal court in Brooklyn on Thursday on a charge of “secreting aboard a vessel.” She was arrested at Kennedy Airport by F.B.I. agents upon her return Wednesday evening after spending about a week in the custody of French authorities. Dali faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison if found guilty of sneaking aboard an aircraft in an incident that raises troubling questions about airport security. Magistrate Judge Robert Levy ordered Dali to be held until 2 p.m. Friday while her bail was decided and her residence was verified. Prosecutors wanted to ensure she had a stable residence, said Brooke Theodora, an assistant United States attorney for the Eastern District of New York. “We’re concerned for a risk of flight here rather than the nature of the offense.”<br/>
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Dutch airline KLM on Thursday urged the government to rethink its approach to tackling noise pollution at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport, one of Europe's main hubs, saying it should promote quieter planes rather than cutting flights. The government is expected to announce a new flight cap for Schiphol this month, after indicating in September it would likely allow 475,000 to 485,000 flights annually, down from the current cap of 500,000. But the Dutch arm of airline group Air France KLM, the largest airline at Schiphol, said noise reduction would be better achieved by making sure airlines replace noisy airplanes with newer ones. "Your ministry seems to be steering towards shrinkage, while this is not necessary to achieve the noise goal," KLM CEO Marjan Rintel said in an open letter to infrastructure minister Barry Madlener published on Thursday. The greatest contribution to reducing noise pollution comes from replacing older aircraft with new, quieter planes."<br/>Rintel said higher tariffs for older planes could push airlines to use newer ones, adding room for 5,000 more flights than the ministry's current model assumes. She also warned about potential retaliation from the United States and other countries if their carriers lose slots at Schiphol, meaning KLM loses landing rights in those countries.<br/>