Which leads to another question... If they do it in Europe, which is a larger continent with more airlines and airports and THEY achieve PPBM...

What are they doing, and how? And what do we need to do to copy them? I have yet to see a large delay on an aircraft in europe because of psitive baggage matching.

Am I lucky? or do they have a system worth copying?

Regards,
-Bouncer-

I doubt that people deciding to go home is responsible for most PPBM events. The most likely scenario is that the customer simply loses track of time (they're in the restroom, in the bar having "one for the road" or are involved in watching a ball game on TV, working on their laptop, reading, etc.). Or, their watch is slow. Or, they mistake the departure time with the boarding time. Or, they catch an earlier flight. Or, they get lost in the airport. And so on.

We do, however, have the technological capability in most airports to check and double-check, every single bag that is checked or carried-on by a profiled suspect.

Whether or not we have the political will is another question.

While I don't know enough about European airport operations to give you a definitive answer, I'm going to guess that the incredibly high tariff/taxes we pay whenever flying out of a busy airport like London Heathrow [LHR] has something to do with how the Europeans manage security.

Besides, how many "domestic" flights are there for European nations? Even American airports require more stringent security on international flights, and pretty much every flight out of an European airport is an international flight.

Last time there was a terrorist activity, the US airspace was closed for a few days. Now that's what I call a real delay. If a plane blows up over the US, it's likely that we'll have the same situation again.

Since, based on 9/11, we'd have to assume that one plane blowing up could be part of another terrorist plot to blow up several planes simultaneously, the FAA would probably ground all air traffic.

That would be a much larger total delay (thousands of flights delayed for hours or days) than a couple minute average delay to scan bags for bombs and implement PPBM.

JetBlue manages to do PPBM, and their airplane turnaround times are faster than most of the industry. Everyone in Europe manages to do it with little delay. So, why can't we? And, it makes no difference that most of the flights in Europe may be international, the bottom line is that they do it.

And the bottom bottom line is that it will be much cheaper and easier for it to proactively implement a checked baggage scanning system and PPBM now, before something happens. Once terrorists load a bomb onto a plane and it blows up, it's going to be 9/11 again. Everyone is going to be afraid to fly, the FAA will start implementing more ridiculous rules, PPBM will become mandatory on all flights, regardless of whether we've developed the capability to handle it efficiently, and there are going to be huge delays at the time of the incident, and for a couple days or weeks after. Meanwhile, passenger volumes will be down, a higher surcharge will likely be imposed on tickets to cover the cost of quickly implementing a baggage screening system (rather than planning it before implementing), airlines will be in more trouble (maybe another government bailout), the economy will get worse...

I'm not scared to fly, for the record, but it will be cheaper and easier for us proactively implement a system now, rather than let more terrorist activities occur first. Baggage scanning and PPBM were in the long-term plans anyway, so one way or another it will happen. I just think we should speed it up to prevent another instance of terrorism.

d

Actually I was not referring to the "least developed countries". Instead I was referring to more "developed" countries like Russia, Isreal, France, Japan, Egypt as well as others... According to your quote USA's current foreign aid is $13,000,000,000. A 50% reduction ($6.5 Billion) would more than pay for the needed equipment and security that is being discussed here. My question to you is what is more important, propping up or subsidizing some foreign government or have state of the art safety and security here in the USA?

It's really not that simple. The foreign aid we give is used as a tool to advance our foreign policy objectives (whether this is itself morally problematic is another issue altogether). There is no question that we should "prop up" a friendly foreign government if the alternative is to have them replaced with Talibanesque regimes. Unfortunately, certain short-sighted US Administrations (not to name names) have been using our foreign aid to prop up Talibanesque regimes to the detriment of more democratic governments, but again, that's another issue.

And in any case, out of all 22 OECD industrialized nations in the world, we provide the least amount of foreign aid as a percentage of GDP. Even Greece and Portugal spend more than we do.

We have plenty of money spent on far less worthy causes. How about the latest $100 billion corporate welfare dole-out passed by the House that even Paul O'Neill called a "show business" pander to campaign contributors?

[This message has been edited by robinhood (edited 11-10-2001).]

After Lockerbee, there was a big bruhaha over checking checked baggage as well as carry-on. FAA said too expensive for our Flag Carriers and look what didn't happen.

Now nothing happens for a while and FAA says "I was right"

9-11 occurs and everyone is scrambling to protect their collective asses. FAA blames CIA..CIA blames FBI..no one's computers talk to each other so everyone blames Uncle Sam.

We, the flying public, pay dearly for each ticket. The airlines hire the least common denometer security idiots and we still pay.

45 days after 9-11 with every TV Talking Head focused on airport safety, with ever PAX still nervous, some IDIOT at OHARE screws up...it isnt like no one was watching. Thank God, United was doing random searches...it could have been worse... He could have been a terrorist instead of just rooming with one

It is now time to wake up and smell the smoke over NYC. Something IS going to happen again..whether Domestic or Foreign or some idiot with a hard-on for someone or some thing. It could be OBL or Tim McVey or joe schmuck who wants to commit suiside in a big way.

I, for one, will be happy to put up with increased security and delays if they were in fact real and not window dressing. What is happening now is just ginger bread to make non flyers comfortable.

Remember that the FAA is not on our side. We will only feel safe if SOMEONE SHOUTS for US.

Doppy & Mikey1003, Well said.

More on the subject:

http://www.davidmrowell.com/travel/current.htm

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