"Silly security also irritates airline exec"

Tuesday, May 28, 2002

Column
Boeing Country: Silly security also irritates airline exec 
by Chris Genna
The Bellevue (WA) Eastside Journal


When American Airlines Chairman Donald Carty recently said some airport
security measures are ``nuts,'' I felt as if great minds think along the
same lines.

Steve Lott of Aviation Daily reported Carty said that about a ban on
parking within 300 feet of some terminals. The Wall Street Journal said
it was redundant gate screening that Carty called ``nuts and needlessly
expensive.'' The Associated Press quoted Carty: ``It's safe to say that
searching flight crews for nail files is nuts.''

No matter. It was the ``nuts'' I focused on, not the specifics.

In Boeing Country March 12, I related how I was not allowed to stop on
the lower drive at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, even after I
got a cell call that my party was awaiting pickup at the curb.

My premise then was: It is needless hassling of passengers -- not fear
of terrorism -- that is hurting air travel, airlines and, by extension,
The Boeing Co.

Nothing has changed in the intervening 10 weeks -- not the silliness and
not my concern.

May 19, I flew on Alaska Airlines from Anchorage to Seattle. After
passing easily through every stage of Anchorage airport security, I made
a simple request that my new digital camera not be X-rayed.

Don't ask me why; it was new, I had not checked with Sony to see if
micro-electronics could be hurt by X-rays, and I had 80 vacation
pictures inside it I wanted to keep.

I turned the camera on so they could see it really was a camera, not a
remote detonator for a nuclear or biological bomb, and asked them to
just look at it.

My request caused an immediate furor: The screener screamed up the line;
a man took my camera as if it were itself radioactive and passed a
sniffer all over it -- then asked me to remove my shoes.

Well, my shoes -- and socks, and belt -- had been checked on the
outbound trip at Sea-Tac (the fumes my socks gave off may have been
toxic, but they were not explosive) so I was confident I had the safest
shoes in the land.

But I must have plunked the shoes down on his table a little hard;
because he asked me, ``Does it bother you that I ask to check your
shoes?''

Honesty is the best policy, my mom told me; but when I answered, ``Well,
yes; I'd be a little less than honest if I didn't say I can't see a
connection between my cameras and my shoes,'' it brought over an
Anchorage airport security cop.

He wasn't alarmed at my behavior; he never went for his gun; he was
smiling and sympathetic. I pointed out that I had asked for this
(something I doubt a terrorist would do, though I didn't say that.)

He said it was a Federal Aviation Administration requirement. Maybe so,
but I can't stop thinking that because I had asked the security
bureaucrats to do something a little extra, they were going to make me
do something a little extra.

Oh -- on the outbound trip at Sea-Tac, my wife's carry-on bag had tested
positive for TNT. Even the operator acknowledged the machine probably
needed cleaning.

Bloomberg News reported Thursday that a United Airlines 747 landed in
Hong Kong after a flight from Chicago Wednesday, and seven largish
firecrackers were found wrapped in paper in the toilet.

If our security is so ironclad, how did those get on board? Firecrackers
may not be lethal, but they ARE packed with explosives.

I know this column will get a certain number of responses from people
who think I'm whining, a trouble-maker, or both. The March 12 column
did.

And as a Time magazine editorial said March 18, ``Since Sept. 11,
subjecting oneself to security indignities has been a civic duty.''

It continued, ``But this has become a parody of civic duty. ... Random
searches are a ridiculous charade that not only gives a false sense of
security but diminishes security because it wastes so much time and
effort on people who are obviously no threat.''

It may sound odd, but if one airport screener had told me I looked like
a terrorist, I would actually feel better about airport security.

If the situation is as silly and flawed as I have painted it, why aren't
the airlines complaining?

Airline spokespersons have told me -- off the record, of course -- the
carriers are petrified to say anything to the feds, for fear they will
be pilloried as callous about safety, whiny about profits, or
unpatriotic.

So it's refreshing to see Carty take the gloves off. During a speech May
20 to airport executives, The Wall Street Journal's Melanie Trottman
reported, Carty said those execs had to ``ensure that the scarce money
and resources we have at our disposal are not squandered on things that
do little, if anything, to enhance security.'' That statement drew heavy
applause, the Journal said.

The impact of all the new rules on travelers should also be considered
-- what's needed is tighter security that doesn't turn passengers away:
``We don't have to kill the patient to save it,'' the paper quoted him
as saying.


 Do you have an opinion about this story?
Share it with other readers in our CAA Discussion Forums

http://www.californiaaviation.org/cgi-bin/dcforum/dcboard.cgi?conf=DCConfID8

*****************************************