They screw up, we pay the price - travelers, crews, and airlines.
Kelly McParland: Thanks mad bomber. Thanks a lot.
Posted: December 28, 2009, 9:23 AM by NP Editor Full Comment, Kelly McParland
Predictably, the reaction of security authorities to the Nigerian man who attempted to blow up a passenger plan landing in Detroit (we're just going to dispense with the "allegedys" here, if you don't mind) is to make life as miserable as possible for all the people who didn't try to blow up a plane on Christmas morning.
They missed a guy from Nigeria, who was so radicalized that his own father grew frightened about his intentions and notified U.S. authorities. So everyone else has to suffer: old ladies, mothers with babies, students, families on their way to a holiday. Wailing kids are forced to stand around uselessly in a mob of frustrated travellers in a boring airport just so the security people can make a show of how careful they're being, just in case that grandbother from Bute turns out to be an Al Qaeda mad bomber in disguise. Folks are needlessly humiliated, forced to pry open their bags on the airport floor, dragging out their carefully packed clothes and toiletries, jamming stuff from one suitcase into another to please the new, arbitrary regulations adopted in a panic by a security apparatus in a high state of embarrassment.
All of it just in case -- just in case -- some poor sucker from Vancouver or Halifax or Hong Kong or Sydney decides to try the exact same trick as the crazy man from Nigeria. Of course, the grannies and the students and the families haven't been to a training camp in Yemen recently, nor have their parents tried to turn them in as religious nuts, nor have they come from a region known as a growing hotbed of radicalism. They're just being harrassed to save face, so the security people can make a show of being super-duper extra careful because they happened to make a bad call on a single traveller out of the hundreds of thousands travelling on that one day, which happens to be among the busiest travel times of the year.
And guess what. They didn't find any more potential terrorists. Nope. They did snare another Nigerian man who apparently really had to go to the bathroom, but it turns out all those grannies were just grannies, the families with kids were just families, the kids were grouchy for very good reason, and the suticases didn't need to be ripped open on the terminal floor. Oh, and the seven-hour waits were entirely unnecessary.
Maybe someone at Homeland Security feels better about life for having ordered it all, pointless as it proved to be. But here's a suggestion: If you're an investing sort, bet against anything to do with the tourist industry. Airlines especially. Boomers have this notion that the world is open to exploration, and they can just get on a plane and go. Maybe it's time for a re-think. Eight years after one guy tried to sneak a bomb onto a plane in his shoe, we're all still taking our shoes off every time we get on a plane -- sandals, flip-flops, you name it -- just to keep the security folks happy. Now we're going to be bound to our seats, limited in bathroom breaks, subjected to ever-more degrading and embarrassing body examinations for the privilege of flying to Omaha or Albuquerque. The last hour of many flights will turn into the equivalent of a high school detention, as passengers are ordered to sit quietly at attention, hands in their laps, looking straight ahead as teacher keeps an eye out for miscreants.
"Passenger in 26B! Quit touching passenger in 26A"
"But she touched me first!"
I don't know about you, but as far as I'm concerned air travel is barely worth it now, and if it gets any more annoying it's not going to be worth it at all.
National Post
Kelly McParland: Thanks mad bomber. Thanks a lot.
Posted: December 28, 2009, 9:23 AM by NP Editor Full Comment, Kelly McParland
Predictably, the reaction of security authorities to the Nigerian man who attempted to blow up a passenger plan landing in Detroit (we're just going to dispense with the "allegedys" here, if you don't mind) is to make life as miserable as possible for all the people who didn't try to blow up a plane on Christmas morning.
They missed a guy from Nigeria, who was so radicalized that his own father grew frightened about his intentions and notified U.S. authorities. So everyone else has to suffer: old ladies, mothers with babies, students, families on their way to a holiday. Wailing kids are forced to stand around uselessly in a mob of frustrated travellers in a boring airport just so the security people can make a show of how careful they're being, just in case that grandbother from Bute turns out to be an Al Qaeda mad bomber in disguise. Folks are needlessly humiliated, forced to pry open their bags on the airport floor, dragging out their carefully packed clothes and toiletries, jamming stuff from one suitcase into another to please the new, arbitrary regulations adopted in a panic by a security apparatus in a high state of embarrassment.
All of it just in case -- just in case -- some poor sucker from Vancouver or Halifax or Hong Kong or Sydney decides to try the exact same trick as the crazy man from Nigeria. Of course, the grannies and the students and the families haven't been to a training camp in Yemen recently, nor have their parents tried to turn them in as religious nuts, nor have they come from a region known as a growing hotbed of radicalism. They're just being harrassed to save face, so the security people can make a show of being super-duper extra careful because they happened to make a bad call on a single traveller out of the hundreds of thousands travelling on that one day, which happens to be among the busiest travel times of the year.
And guess what. They didn't find any more potential terrorists. Nope. They did snare another Nigerian man who apparently really had to go to the bathroom, but it turns out all those grannies were just grannies, the families with kids were just families, the kids were grouchy for very good reason, and the suticases didn't need to be ripped open on the terminal floor. Oh, and the seven-hour waits were entirely unnecessary.
Maybe someone at Homeland Security feels better about life for having ordered it all, pointless as it proved to be. But here's a suggestion: If you're an investing sort, bet against anything to do with the tourist industry. Airlines especially. Boomers have this notion that the world is open to exploration, and they can just get on a plane and go. Maybe it's time for a re-think. Eight years after one guy tried to sneak a bomb onto a plane in his shoe, we're all still taking our shoes off every time we get on a plane -- sandals, flip-flops, you name it -- just to keep the security folks happy. Now we're going to be bound to our seats, limited in bathroom breaks, subjected to ever-more degrading and embarrassing body examinations for the privilege of flying to Omaha or Albuquerque. The last hour of many flights will turn into the equivalent of a high school detention, as passengers are ordered to sit quietly at attention, hands in their laps, looking straight ahead as teacher keeps an eye out for miscreants.
"Passenger in 26B! Quit touching passenger in 26A"
"But she touched me first!"
I don't know about you, but as far as I'm concerned air travel is barely worth it now, and if it gets any more annoying it's not going to be worth it at all.
National Post
