As part of a charm offensive in Europe, the US authorities have devised a scheme to speed them through the security checks there.
It is a sign, perhaps, that the White House may still need a European geography lesson that Amsterdam's Schiphol airport is the only one to quality. Most maps show Amsterdam five degrees of longitude east of London's Heathrow, which handles most transatlantic flights.
The idea was announced yesterday by Tom Ridge, the outgoing US homeland security secretary, during a visit to Brussels and Amsterdam be fore George Bush comes next month.
Acknowledging that travellers resented the stringent security checks at US airports, he announced that "low risk" flyers to John F Kennedy New York would be allowed to register their fingerprints and other biometric details so that they could avoid the long queues at Schiphol by stopping at a fast check kiosk.
He said the system was based on that used for frequent flyers on US domestic flights.
He told Associated Press in Amsterdam: "The main advantage to the United States will come if this program successfully and efficiently moves traffic through and other countries say: 'We ought to apply this on a much broader basis.'"
