MilesBuzz! - Security Will Raise Cost of Travel?

According to an article I just read in the LA Times, the current estimates for the cost of airport security will exceed $6 billion per year. They say that the new security ticket tax (max $10/ticket) will only raise about $1 billion.

That means that they either need to raise the security tax to about $60/ticket or, more likely (as I read the article), decrease expenditures on other airline safety and runway congestion improvement. The likely result, for frequent flyers, is an increase in the cost of travel *and* a greater chance (statistically) of death. Not a great result.

$6 billion a year to hunt down everything sharp and pointy??

Probably not the biggest waste of time and money ever, but still utter nonsense.

Are these the NEW total costs for security or what it will cost ABOVE what it used to cost? Who used to pay for it then?

The airlines are still paying what they used to pay for security, as far as I know. Did this article take that into account?

If there are any further costs, they should be passed on to all of the taxpayers. People on the ground get just as much protection as people in the sky.

d

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by ScottC:
Are these the NEW total costs for security or what it will cost ABOVE what it used to cost? Who used to pay for it then?</font>

Before September 11, according to the LA Times, the airlines paid between $700 million and $1 billion annually for security (which they still have to pay for the first two years). Accordingly, about $5 billion is new expense.

www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-040802airport.story (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-040802airport.story)

Still utter nonsense.

[Edited to add: Since this has nothing to do with miles, expect that it will soon be moved to the island of misfit threads.]

[This message has been edited by FWAAA (edited 04-10-2002).]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by FWAAA:
Still utter nonsense.
</font>

Assuming the new security would stop hijacking (which isn't necessarily the case) what's the savings we're getting?

I bet the true economic cost of 9/11 is more than $5B.

d

Fitch Ratings: Airport Security Measures To Cost Billions
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/020410/100241_1.html

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Security requirements as mandated by the Aviation and Transportation Security Act represent significant capital improvement projects that will cost billions in the near term and must be completed by quickly approaching deadlines. Spillover costs from this mandate could force U.S. airports, and potentially U.S. airlines at their pre-Sept. 11 spending levels, to collectively redirect billions of resources from securing their core business, creating a potential funding gap for investment in revenue-producing assets, according to a new research report from Fitch Ratings.</font>


[This message has been edited by EPS (edited 04-10-2002).]

Assuming the economic cost of 9-11 to be $5B, would that jusify $5B per year cost of new security? I don't think it should.
To think like that, if you had an insurance claim one year for $20,000, every year your insurance bill would be $20,000. Not realistic.
LAT story the other day tells of people wanting to work for the new TSA but that agency can't get the employment apps to people. (A $100 + contract to private co to handle that.)
There is no limit to what can be spent to make us feel secure. The govt. is willing to spend it if we are willing to pay for it.
There has to be some sort of middle ground.

Remember that *most* of the cost is unrelated to what happened on 9/11. What happened on 9/11 was that people used the airplanes as missles. But most of the expense now is to avoid bombs on board planes (the new machines for detecting bombs in checked baggage - not hijacking).

Is this a legitimate concern? Not based on historical figures. More people have been killed by suicidal airline employees in the cockpit than by terrorist bombs in luggage.

However, the world is a place of change, and this may be a valid area of concern. But not the *only* valid area of concern. In my opinion, the "perception" factor will ruin the world of frequent travel. Today, it isn't possible to do the 500,000 miles per year I did in 1984 when I "got into" frequeny flying. The delays at the airport would make it impossible to attend meetings and still make all the connections.

The economic loss to the airlines, and of the value of the time of people waiting at the airports, far exceed the direct economic cost of 9/11. Is it justified? That can only be answered by hindsight and personal perception. Right now we can save more American lives and more American money than was lost on 9/11 by making the national speed limit 45 mph. But we don't do that because we don't, as a group, perceive that saving all those lives and money is justified by the inconvenience.

sbrower, while I agree with your basic arguement, I think you are wrong about suicidal employees versus bombs. Off the top of my head bombs have blown up atleast 4 planes. 2 by the Libyans (Air France? over africa and Pan Am), Canadian plane by Sihks and Jap. Red Army with North Korean help on (JAL?).

Suicides Egypt Air, the commuter plane in California and maybe, I think, one in Indonesia. Is there others?

Otherwise I agree that this is an illogical waste of effort for extremely low probability of success. Heavy profiling of checked bags would probably be as successful as wasting all this money rushing to put any tech in place to check every bag.


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Robert

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Jakester:
Assuming the economic cost of 9-11 to be $5B, would that jusify $5B per year cost of new security? I don't think it should.</font>

The economic cost was a lot higher than $5B. The company that leased the WTC wants to get at least $7.2B from its insurance companies.

Then add the cost of damage to the Pentagon, lost productivity of thousands of people who were killed, the campaign in Afganistan (and the perpetual cash we're going to be giving Afganistan in the future), cost of cleanup and rebuilding the Pentagon and WTC, cost for thousands of NYC residents to clean up, stock market decline, companies that went out of business, cost of the airlines being shut down for 3 days, cost of the government bailout (wasn't that at least $5B?), cost of new airport security and so on...


A lot of the cost is one-time, getting the equipment in place to screen bags. While there's going to be costs to maintain and operate that equipment, it's largely a one time deal that would be paid for by stopping one or two bombings.

d

I was encouraged by a response to do the actual research. I stand by the sentiment of my message (perception and reality don't always coincide) but the actual statistics are as follows:

1980 to Present

Murder by airline employees in the Cockpit

1982 JAL 24
1987 PSA 43
1994 Royal Air Maroc 44
1997 Silk Air 104
1999 Egypt Air 217

Total 432

Murder by in-flight bomb

1982 Pan Am 1
1983 Gulf Air 166
1985 Air India 345
1986 TWA 4
1988 Pan Am 259
1989 UTA 189

Total 964
(NOTE: Apparently 0 in the last 13 years??)

[Edited to include 1989 UTA per message below from robvberg]

[This message has been edited by sbrower (edited 04-12-2002).]

Doppy: not to disagree with your statment but please factor in on the plus side all of those extra jobs in rebuilding the Pentagon and the extra hours needed to replace all of those bombs we used.

The reason the cost is so high is because most of this "random security" focuses on the stupidest things. If we stopped wasting time and money on the truly inane "random security" and focused our efforts on stopping guns and bombs, we'd not need this awful "random security" fee of $10. Most of the cost of good security would be for equipment and that should come out of the PFC (Passenger Facility Charges) that have been collected over the years and are sitting in a large pot right now. Also, scrapping the air marshall program as it's unnecessary would also free up money for training, as will sending home the "Show of Force/Farce" National Guard.

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"Give me Liberty or give me Death." - Patrick Henry

Doppy,

Whatever the terrorist attacks of 9/11 cost, that money is gone forever. We won't get any of it back by spending even more on generally pointless "security" at airports.

Taking away children's scissors isn't going to stop a repeat of 9/11. What will stop it is the change in passengers' and crews' attitude toward hijackers, along with one-time changes like reinforced cockpit doors -- the most reasonable security enhancement put into place since 9/11.

People just have to get over the idea that by throwing unlimited funds into "security," we will eventually become 100% safe from terrorist attacks. We will never be totally safe, and even if we could be, the cost would be so high that no sane person would agree to spend it.

Let's consider an analogy: Our roads would be much safer if we removed all intersections and replaced them with crossovers and cloverleafs, a la limited-access highways. So why don't we do that? After all, far more people are killed on roads EACH YEAR than in all the airplane accidents in history. The answer is obvious: the cost would be too high.

In my opinion, we have already gone beyond the point of reason with regard to air-travel security. Most of what we are doing today is just a useless drag on the economy. The longer we do it, the more damage that will be done. Ultimately, the terrorists will have won.

Bruce

Very well said, Bruce.

Unfortunately, the "price is no object" camp appears to have carried the day.

Even worse, some day in the future they will declare that this BS has "prevented another September 11" and that they are all heroes...wait...San Jose already declared Norm Mineta a hero, in part for his handling of the ground stop and the sharp and pointy ban. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/rolleyes.gif

Kind of hard to convince the sheople at that point that the TSA is wrongly claiming credit for the absence of hijackings and that many, many billions of dollars have been squandered.


"Patience {with ludicrous and nonsensical security procedures, completely inept federal bureaucrats and unprecedented intrusions into Americans' Constitutional Rights} is the newest form of Patriotism."

Agreed. The two posters above have it right. The TSA and its request for $6 billion are just the beginning. The difficulty will be weaning our country from this costly "security" mistake over the next decades.

The price for airport security tripled, essentially, (with minimal security improvement IMHO) when the airport security people were made federal employees. This will cost more than the State Department, and it will go on for years.

sbrower, you also missed the french flight which cost another 182 lives in 1989. It was basically the same device as used in Pan Am.
"The United Nations Security Council has passed 3 resolutions calling upon Libya to surrender for trial two men suspected of bombing Pan Am flight 103 in 1988 and French flight UTA 772 in 1989." or see
http://home.c2i.net/stein.sandvold/uta/

I do understand your feeling though, bombings have dropped off because of the result of Pam Am and the recognition of the threat. By profiling and doing selective scanning it has been possible to limit the belief in success. Actually the decision to attack terrorists and terrorist supporting states has helped but I still feel that the main reason we have seen so few actual bombings is that building a bomb that will blow up a plane in air is probably the most difficult bomb to make. There are too many variables and the bomb must be highly stable and robust enough to stand up to baggage handler abuse. This generally requires government level support for the best explosives and bomb making abilities.

Both though are extremely limited threats that will not be solved by this massive expenditure of money.

Doppy, I disagree that most of this is a one time equipment cost. First I think the majority of security experts agree that the devices now being purchased are not the best just the best available. What we are going to see is a massive expenditure for them and a consistent need to find better devices. The false positive rate is going to be terrible when you are trying to scan all 1 billion plus bags. This cost does not even include the constant service and training required. These are highly sophisticated devices that will have to be precisely maintained to be effective. This is not a hospital with relatively limited use which is the original purpose of these machines.

I also believe that your idea to pay for this by not using the military is the wrong attitude. The only way we will prevent major terrorist actions is by destroying the attackers. Even the most massive security expenditure will not prevent major terrorist action. The best it can do is change the terrorist target or the method he uses to attack his target. Either way he will attack until eliminated.



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Robert

As for those bomb detecting machines: ORD does not have enough space to install them if they had them. They don't have enough space to add more screening positions.
Since the feds tookover, the screeners pay has doubled nationally with the SAME screeners that the pols said were bad.

The above are excellent arguments all. Obviously as a conservative, I agree with some and disagree with others. One point that was started, however, I would like to supplement. Isn't it curious how we are willing to accept 42,000+ deaths a year on our roads, yet we are even more willing to accept spending $6B or more to allegedly prevent a few hundred deaths in a hijacking or bombing. The reason? Aircraft crashes are sensational front page news, yet people die on the highways every day. It never makes the national media, unless it's a big one.

Modern Americans, most of whom do not know, understand, appreciate, or respect the Constitution and the rights it guarantees them, have fallen into what Ben Franklin warned us about. "Those who would sacrifice liberty for safety, deserve neither." Or something like that.