"Pax not happy with impact on checked bags."

Is that title intentional? Read it again and wonder if the ramp workers union has a fatwa out on you.

"Thus, while blowing up an airport would be bad, it's a building on the ground and you can control whether you enter that building or not. People put it in the back of their heads and go on."

Yes this group of bad guys like big flashy events. But if this group wants effect, like the Rand study confirmed I believe "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."

Those 20 in the UK could do it. Send them out around the world. Attack 10 airport screening areas and baggage claims in large, meduim, and small airports on one day. The other ten? Every day or two at random thereafter hit another screening area or bag claim.

The aviation system would be shut down. Perhaps permanently. How do I know for sure?

"Thus, killing 150 people while crashing an airplane will always have a bigger effect than killing 150 people in a building. After 9/11 the idiots stopped flying but after Oklahoma City, people didn't stop walking into and working in office buildings."

You forget the BIG difference. After Ok City people were allowed to make the individual free choice of walking into a building. Or not. Why?

The day after Ok City Homeland Security was NOT in charge of Building Security.

Today it is.