FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - Why do Airlines Love a Loser?

Dec 11, 2012, 12:08 pm

#9

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Quote:

Originally Posted by NYC96

At any time, they have the RIGHT to make crewmembers go through the same screening process as passengers do.

Not only are airline employees exempt from the Scope-N-Gropes and TSA Petting Zoos, there are many airports where they bypass the checkpoint entirely. We're now up to 13 instances in the last 5 years where an airline employees have been caught with firearms in the sterile area, including a AA FA just a few weeks ago in ORD.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Christopher Elliott

Are airline employees less of a security risk than passengers? Not necessarily.

Who can forget Clayton Frederick Osbon, the JetBlue pilot who had a "psychotic breakdown" on a flight from New York to Las Vegas earlier this year. Or EgyptAir first officer Gameel Al-Batouti, who, investigators concluded, committed suicide when he crashed EgyptAir Flight 990 into the Atlantic just south of Nantucket Island in 1999.

PSA flight 1771, FedEx 705, and last summer former SkyWest pilot Brian Hedglin stole an empty CRJ2000. He taxied it at high speed into a terminal building, then shot himself in the cabin.

If airline unions were serious about effective security, they would insist everyone entering the sterile area be subjected to the same common sense screening. X-ray of belongings, walk through / hand held metal detector, Explosive Trace Detection / Explosive Trace Portal. Nothing more, nothing less.

Instead, they are only interested in securing more special privileges and security loopholes for their members.

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