Tuesday, January 12, 2010
There's reason to believe airport security is worse than useless. It maintains the appearance of safety while providing very little and lots of inconvenience. For example, all the talk about the "No Fly List" misses the point that at home printable boarding passes make circumventing this check trivial.
There's probably not very much that we can do about this. But only because the government is in charge of security and they are massively incompetent at everything except providing health care, I'm told.
But just for fun, here's a few ideas I would implement if I were in charge.
1) Except for businessmen and parents with small children, you don't really need ANY carry-on luggage. People only bring luggage on board because a) checked luggage is inconvenient and now expensive; and b) entertainment.
In-flight entertainment should be upgraded to include free movies and TV's on all flights. Flights should also have internet access, with portable keyboards that could be rented and work with the seatback screens and something like Chrome OS.
Instead of charging for checked bags, they should give a discount for people with no carry-ons. This would expedite security, boarding, and probably end up saving airlines money. Checked luggage should be faster, easier, and free, to further discourage carry-on bags.
When a majority of people can stroll through security with not much more than their wallet and a paperback, the process will be more efficient and TSA will have more time to search the underwear of foreigners. Parents with small children would still need to carry-on bags so they should be banned from air travel.
2) We should pay the low level TSA agents $500k each time they find a bomb. $250k for a gun. Or maybe more than that. They should also be given small bonuses when security wait time exceeds a given service level for the entire shift.
3) When they check your ID matches your boarding pass before security they should ensure the boarding pass is not a forgery. Authorization doesn't work without authentication. This shouldn't be hard to do.
There's probably not very much that we can do about this. But only because the government is in charge of security and they are massively incompetent at everything except providing health care, I'm told.
But just for fun, here's a few ideas I would implement if I were in charge.
1) Except for businessmen and parents with small children, you don't really need ANY carry-on luggage. People only bring luggage on board because a) checked luggage is inconvenient and now expensive; and b) entertainment.
In-flight entertainment should be upgraded to include free movies and TV's on all flights. Flights should also have internet access, with portable keyboards that could be rented and work with the seatback screens and something like Chrome OS.
Instead of charging for checked bags, they should give a discount for people with no carry-ons. This would expedite security, boarding, and probably end up saving airlines money. Checked luggage should be faster, easier, and free, to further discourage carry-on bags.
When a majority of people can stroll through security with not much more than their wallet and a paperback, the process will be more efficient and TSA will have more time to search the underwear of foreigners. Parents with small children would still need to carry-on bags so they should be banned from air travel.
2) We should pay the low level TSA agents $500k each time they find a bomb. $250k for a gun. Or maybe more than that. They should also be given small bonuses when security wait time exceeds a given service level for the entire shift.
3) When they check your ID matches your boarding pass before security they should ensure the boarding pass is not a forgery. Authorization doesn't work without authentication. This shouldn't be hard to do.
