Originally Posted by rexb

When 200 people crowd shoulder to shoulder in a small space in an airport, it makes you wonder why a suicidal terrorist would bother trying to bomb an airPLANE. We better get prepared for the threat being to the airPORT, not the airPLANE.

All the TSA's efforts seem to be focused on airPLANE security, with minimal concern for airPORT security. While there are concrete barriers near the doors for DEPARTing passengers, there are no similar measures near the doors immediately adjacent to the baggage claim areas, where 200 passengers might be crowded around like bowling pins, a ready target for a suicide car bomber. You can be sure that 19 suicide car bombers hitting the baggage claim airport of even medium sized airports would change the face of air travel a whole lot more than one failed "shoe bomber".

But of course, the security screening area is just as much a target, and a suicide bomber can carry/wheel a rollaboard full of explosives right into the thick of 200 people there. Might not kill in the hundreds, but it would shut down air travel in an unimaginable way, especially if a dozen airports were attacked simulatenously.