Flying High in the Crumpled Skies

Criminy, do I hate flying on Northwest Airlines! I'm not a small guy (6' 3" and big boned, though not overly packing), and Northwest is notorious for having some of the smallest seat/leg room of any airline I travel. (Unfortunately, I tend to use it more often than not due to having banked bags of miles, plus it's an easy non-stop to visit the grandparents in Minneapolis). I knew things would be tight on my nearly 6-hour flight to Hawaii, but I've got a woman in front of me who has cranked her seat back as far as it can go and adjusts herself with gusto every so often. (And she should have some compassion as she's either a flight attendant on vacation or retired--she seems to know all the working attendants, and they keep bringing her gifts of free wine, extra water, etc.) Plus, I've got a petite Japanese woman next to me who's making herself quite comfortable in my seating zone, despite a couple of reminders that I'll bring the Israeli Defense forces into this border skirmish if she continues. I've got my laptop precariously angled on my lap and my shoulder hunched up to my ears for typing. Arrrrgggghhh.

Anyhoo, Salon's got a pretty interesting commentary by airline pilot Patrick Smith about the most recent shifting in the airline security landscape, and what that could mean for air travel going forward. (Salon requires either a subscription, or a few seconds of your time to sit through a web ad to be granted a free day pass.)

It's difficult to tell how long the new prohibitions will last, or to what scope they might be expanded, but the rumblings are ominous. According to officials at TSA, the ban on liquids and gels is set to last indefinitely. Rumors have surfaced that laptop computers and other electronic devices could soon be restricted as well. Is airport security about to experience another, even more powerful paradigm shift than we saw in the aftermath of Sept. 11, resulting in even greater hassle than we're already used to? It's disheartening to think so, but certainly the stars are lining up that way.

To properly get our arms around the folly of it all, we need to look back at what happened in 1995. I'm referring to the notorious "Oplan Bojinka" -- which I wrote about last week -- a conspiracy linked to al-Qaida that was broken up by Philippine police only days before 11 U.S. jetliners were targeted for destruction. The parallels between the Bojinka and London operations are truly remarkable, involving similar explosive materials and a strikingly similar modus operandi. Yet on the heels of Bojinka, airports remained calm. Passengers were free to step aboard with their cups of coffee and bottles of shampoo. This forces us to wonder: If it is truly in the interest of air safety to stop passengers from bringing the most basic and commonplace personal items on board, why was it not done the first time?

Mostly because authorities then had sense enough to understand such rules would be highly disruptive, tediously work-intensive, and in the end not very useful. Ban what we may, it doesn't take the world's smartest criminal to realize there are an unlimited number of ways to smuggle a potentially dangerous item onto a plane: be it an improvised knife hewn from plastic, or explosives or flammables made from many different substances -- solids, liquids and powders. A person could spend all day concocting nefarious, and ultimately undetectable, instruments of destruction.

"We can't keep weapons out of prisons. How can we hope to keep them out of airports?" poses Bruce Schneier, a prominent security expert and the author of "Beyond Fear."

[...]

Now, imagine the impact on the airlines should prohibitions be expanded. The industry has already posted $35 billion in losses since Sept. 11, and an unknown number of high-end business travelers, historically the airlines' most valuable customers, have migrated to private aviation, where fractional ownership programs offer a relaxed and increasingly inexpensive alternative to the madness of hub connections and the ransacking of carry-ons. Bring in the sorts of draconian rules some people are talking about, such as banning laptop computers, and you'll likely see a mass exodus of business fliers. Simultaneously, as the hassle factor climbs, flying becomes less and less attractive for the leisure traveler, especially on short-haul routes.

Airlines have remained mostly silent thus far. Traditionally, it's not in the industry's best interests to speak out against anything perceived as bettering security. But they can't be pleased. The nation's carriers have been footing the bulk of the airport security bill since 2001, passing along the expense to passengers through unpopular ticket taxes and surcharges. Those costs will be increasing.

[...]

The safety vs. convenience tradeoff makes for an effective sound bite, but in truth it's a slippery slope that traps us in an unwinnable shell game: In the aftermath of Sept. 11 our focus on was sharp objects, until a renegade Brit named Richard Reid wore his explosive sneakers past guards at Charles de Gaulle. Now it's sharp objects, sneakers and liquids too. With Bojinka in mind, shouldn't we also outlaw light bulbs, cotton balls, batteries and watches, since those were critical elements in Ramzi Yousef's microbombs? Some would say yes. Some are saying yes. Where to draw the line?

Reasoned thinking isn't good enough for a segment of the populace obsessed with safety and the specter of terrorists. We expect that every flicker of our color-coded alert will be met with more and more layers of protection -- even when that protection drives us crazy, and even when it serves no useful purpose. We are following this path deeper and deeper into absurdity.