Originally Posted by vassilipan
First - can you name any instances of terrorists using flight crew luggage?
I don't know if crew have been used or not, but there have been attempted cases of using passenger luggage. In any event, there were no cases of 9/11 attacks before 9/11, but that doesn't mean that it wouldn't have been a good idea to try to stop the attacks before the occurred. Instead, we knew that people wanted to crash planes into buildings but ignored the threat. Here we know that terrorists want to use other people as mules to smuggle stuff into the sterile area, so I don't see much of a reason to ignore that threat.
Second - The same $20,000/year FA is probably already getting away with it, despite screening.
Screening, while not perfect, deters plenty of people from bringing prohibited items into the sterile area. At least if the crew is being screened we have a chance of stopping someone. If they're not, then we have no chance.
Third - again, how many instances of this have occurred, despite the post 9/11 hysteria involving "stolen pilot uniforms/UPS uniforms/police uniforms," etc.?
None that I know of because we screen crew, so there's not much value in getting a fake uniform and ID. If we stopped screening crew, then there would be quite a big incentive to do so.
There are cases of people using fake IDs for criminal purposes every day. Yesterday someone got robbed here in Boston by someone who was dressed up like a cop and had a badge.
The real point is, there are hundreds of people other than flight crew who have access to the equipment without being screened, e.g., gate agents, baggage handlers, food service, fuel service, etc.
Right - that's already a major security concern (and in fact the TSA does screen some of these people some of the time for just that reason). But how does increasing the number of unscreened people improve security?