Having just come back from LAX to LHR this week (and also having to take my Mom to LAX the day before for a flight to TPA) I can confirm that LAX is the biggest disaster of all US airports. Forgetting the fact that the terminals are badly designed (at least terminal 5 and 6 and International) because they are too narrow, the TSA there seem to be particularly "riot police-like". Perhaps they are just all in bad moods from having to work in such bad conditions.

The entire experience of checking in for BA for example is frustrating. I checked in at the F desk (thankfully a full 3 hours ahead of time, having seen what the crowds were like when I dropped my Mom off) and then had to lug the suitcases to another part of the terminal, where the TSA had set up a little screened off "booth" to scan the bags. I ended up tipping like a hundred people just to check in (I had 2 others travelling with me and we had a huge amount of luggage after a Christmas cruise!)

We then proceeded to the BA lounge which is total crap....oops, I'm starting to rant and this is a whole new topic, but you get the idea.

Isn't there some way to hold the management of LAX to account for such an organization and isn't the closing of an entire terminal because of one person a bit of an over reaction on their part? Are they perhaps too trigger happy because of the fact that some of the 9/11 flights were bound for LAX or because of he problem they had at the beginning of 2000?