My apologies that this page has a different cant from most of the others. I have very strong feelings about the application, choices and efficacy of what I term the ‘theatre of security’.
A couple of paragraphs of history for youngsters. I was flying in the late ‘60s to early ‘70s, with the glamour of ‘we are here to serve you’ airlines. My cohort wore a tie to take a flight, as if we were going to dinner with Grandmother. No passenger ID required, no security screening, no luggage restrictions. The customer is always right. It was like boarding a glamorous bus (airbus?). Even during the heyday of criminal activity (there were 11 hijackings in the US in the first six weeks of ‘69), there was little appetite for changes. The US instituted profiling in ‘69, then xray screening in ‘73. Flying in the new modern period has always been statistically safe. The jury is out as to whether xray screening changed anything, or if hijacking simply went out of fashion.
And as one who has flown very, very often since then, and spent time as a guest in cockpits, I waited for the very easily predictable non weapon really bad outcome. And that happened in ‘01. Anyone who spent time in a US airport in the two years after that recalls the militarization of a civil function, with yelling, arbitrary detention, and head bowing. A despot had unleashed the worst members of an otherwise professional security and screening group. And every time you fly in the US you pay a $5.60 ‘9/11 Security Fee’.
Then came the ‘no fly list’. With just a moment of consideration this is absurd. The idea is that someone is so dangerous that we will not let them on a commercial aircraft, even if we searched them and screened their bags. Yet they have not committed any crime for which they can be detained. Who is such a person? Well, my name is common enough that it flagged on the no fly list more than once, and airport staff wasted a lot of time as they tried to figure out whether or not I was an ‘evil doer’.
Then came the multiple layers of name/ID matching. At checkin, at security screening, often at boarding. The record so far was seven passport checks in Manila. Again, who cares? Everyone and all their stuff has been screened. It is a pleasant surprise in most countries there is no ID check at security so after checking in online, noone at the airport wants to see your ID. In Brisbane I sailed from curb to jetway without speaking with a human.
Then the so called ‘shoe bomber’ (who it should be pointed out failed), convinced TSA that shoes themselves now have to be screened. This is akin to reasoning that since a meteorite almost hit a person, we should build a portable roof over everyone to prevent a tragedy.
Next, of course, was the liquid accelerant scare (again, nothing bad happened), so that now Walgreen’s makes more money by selling ‘travel sized’ products. Of course, if someone really wanted to cause havoc, applying a little chemistry knowledge with a combination of solids, powders and liquids will achieve spectacular results.
I have completely given up trying to reason over the confiscation of nail files, clippers, oral hygiene tools, matches, lighters, corkscrews. As noted elsewhere my little corkscrews are acceptable for five consecutive flights, then are deemed shockingly dangerous on the next. Then, of course, in business class lunch is served with metal cutlery. Rich people do not commit mayhem?
Security screening catches a whole bunch of guns in carryon baggage, but I have yet to read of a single case where the passenger had bad intent, rather than just being an idiot. And predictably, in stress tests of the system, screening fails to catch a great deal of other potentially deadly stuff that happily goes on it’s way.
At ‘security screening’. I have been instructed to keep my hat on. Then had my hat ‘hand searched’. The bandanna around my neck has been flagged for removal and a run through the xray machine.
Now there is the ‘no hanging out by the toilets’, ‘ask permission before changing seats’, locked cockpit door (which was a no brainer when I was a six year old – yet had rare but predictable bad outcome for Germanwings 9525).
My conclusion is that there just are not a lot of people who are highly motivated to do harm to the flying population. Each fear has added extra inconvenience and additional cost to virtually every passenger every day. And US passenger screening politically cannot backtrack and admit that they have just gone too far, and that we should safely loosen many of the restrictions.
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