Are cell phones and laptops the next banned items?
 

Boyd is right on about the inept TSA:

Monday August14 Hot Flash

http://www.aviationplanning.com/asrc1.htm

Agreed 100%
 

I agree with the sentiments of the writer ...and also think the folks at CO agree too. Considering Jeff Smizek's rant on FAMs at the last 'Do (which I also agree completely with), I'm sure corporately they're annoyed at the layer of keystone cops (TSAs) that surround their business and their customers ...while their equipment really does remain at risk from not-so-nice people.

If anything should be blown-up, it should be the useless security provisions we have around air travel; we should start over from the ground up on a really secure system on appropriate background checks and real profiling that targets real threats from real people rather than the random-object-of-the-month that has a 99.9% chance of not being used maliciously.

I don't agree with Boyd on alot of things, but I think he stole a page from my playbook with his rant :) I am proud of him. Finally someone 'in the biz' with cajones to tell it like it is.

People without aviation backgrounds have no business creating aviation security policy. These former cops, Army Rangers or whatever, who are authoring security policy for the aviation industry are no more qualified to know if a turbofan creates thrust or dries your hair. We need aviation people managing security policy. I have been yelling that to deaf ears for too long.

Now why do you think Boyd's expert opinion is not heard on the media?

I think airline executives need to take a very aggressive stance on the 'ban more' movement currently brewing around Congress and the TSA. If electronics and/or carry-ons were banned, the financial picture would be an absolute disaster. Try and imagine an immediate-post 9/11 passenger load coupled with 2006 fuel costs and then take a bet how long anyone is going to stay in business.

It is going to be necessary for airlines to be proactive on this: make their position known, make the message strong and clear - no further bans without specific quantifiable evidence a threat is immediate and certain, and no further bans without a written plan on how to back away and restore normality to the system.

Great idea, ban the cell phones and computers, and don't forget the ipods.

Forget about doin' any work on the road, sit back and enjoy the Keystone Cops and Self Loading Freight show. :p

Boyd also said just over a year ago that it would be a cold day in hell before Southwest entered the Denver market. Southwest announced DEN service a few weeks later. :rolleyes:

He's the self-appointed expert on all things air service, but why folks consider him credible I'll never understand...

Like I said, I don't agree with some of his industry specific analysis, but in this case, his point of view was dead-on and accurate. However, it will be a cold day in hell before the news media picks up on his point of view and offers him as counterpoint to the 'ban everything' hoopla. His analysis fails to drum up the requisite fear and panic necessary to drive ratings and sales and keep the theater moving along.

"People without aviation backgrounds have no business creating aviation security policy. These former cops, Army Rangers or whatever, who are authoring security policy for the aviation industry are no more qualified to know if a turbofan creates thrust or dries your hair."

Does Continental have an intelligence service? Do they have agents infiltrating terrorist cells? I don't think that having worked for an airline makes you necessarily better at doing security. No doubt the airlines do hire consultants at some point. People without aviation backgrounds can become plenty familiar with the ins and outs and airline security policies. Would you make the same expectation of the airline's IT staff? Should you have to have been a pilot to manage their website?

Right now you're seeing a knee jerk reaction from everyone until they have more details about the security threat worked out. Word has it that someone with unlimited airport access was in on the London plot, so for right now they're trying to work things out. Travel became quite difficult after 9/11, but it went back to normal. You will probably see the same thing here. They very well may ban either liquids and gels or electronics. You need both to make a bomb apparently, so they don't need to ban both. Then again, I haven't worked for an airline so why should I have an opinion? Right? :rolleyes:

In any case, why is this in the CO OP forum and not the security forum?

Because, regrettably, something about the most recent threat short-circuited a lot of people's sense about where to post these threads.

And because your moderator was off tending to other stuff in his life and didn't move it until now. Please continue this discussion in the TS&S forum

Xyzzy
CO forum moderator

What an incredible oversimplification. The aviation infrastructure is a highly complex environment. Find me anyone in TSA management with a degree in Aviation Management. I doubt you would find more than a small sprinke, none of whom are in positions to drive policy. People with a "security/law enforcement only" background aren't going to know the first thing about securing an airport. Where did I say in my post someone needed to work for an airline?? No where. I stated that aviation security professionals must have an 'aviation background'.

The intelligence services can feed information to the aviation people, but it should be aviation people and only the aviation people who decide how to protect aviation infrastructure - not politically minded dimwits like Chertoff or Hawley who lack the background to understand the nuances of airport and airline operations. Their focus on 'checkpoint only' security is both equally laughable and dangerous. This is why security policy was always the domain of the FAA - and the correct approach post 9/11 was to toughen up the FAA's enforcement ability and standards, not create a new money blowing bureacracy.

A kneejerk reaction? Certainly. Necessary with the proper planning and infrastructure in place? Not at all.

The moderators will decide where threads belong, thanks.

I can guarantee you that Continental and other carriers have security staffs at their own airlines, and that those staffs are probably in a better position to consider effective aviation security measures than normal intel and military personnel. You're also confusing intelligence operations with aviation security; though good intelligence is necessary to the distruption of terrorist plots and to gaining insights into potential threats, it is not security.

Look at the positive side... no loud chatter, no one deeply engrossed in work, pax will actually talk to each other, smile, make friendships... world will come closer with these new friendships and terrorism will wither away in the new era of camaraderie :cool: :) :-:

*SLAP*

Huh, what? Sorry, the TSA man made me drink something out of a bottle and I totally lost it there for a second!
;) :o :D

He was on MSNBC a day or two after the announcement of the water carnival, lambasting the TSA, DHS and pretty much echoing the things in this article. He said, alsmost verbatim, "The TSA is incompetent." ^

Hahah, and I do wonder how many people would be driven postal by the banalities of seatmate conversation repeated for a hundred-plus flights per year. After getting, "Now what do you do for a living?" for the fifty-third time, I think I'd snap. ;)

I missed that :( I have been keeping away from the news because I can't stand one more interview with another sheeple passenger or another self-proclaimed security expert with another inane solution.

Good for him! Hope some people were paying attention - although I bet the reporter doing the interview tried to bait him by suggesting his opinion was creating risk and making air travel more vulnerable.