Outraged by lack of security for checked baggage
 

I no longer feel safe flying. I don't worry about terrorists trying to control a plane but by the lack of security regarding checked bags.

Only 5% of checked bags are run through bomb detecting machines. The government says it will be 2-3 years before enough equipment is in place to check all bags.

A complete lack of security in this are for so long is completely unacceptable in the wake of Sep. 11.

The airlines will not even" bag match" passengers to the bags to make sure those with checked bags actually get on the plane. Unbelievable.

Everything regarding security is "too expensive" or would "cause delays" according to the airlines. The FAA or the U.S. gov't must step in to avoid a potential disaster. Security still is awful.

Here is my solution which is simple and highly effective. Have local uniformed police quickly open and inspect ALL checked bags for explosives. This would not take long and the deterrent would work. Add a $1 or so surcharge to each ticket to pay the salaries of the police-checkers.

I believe regular people are much more concerned about security than the airlines. If suppost is there this type of needed security could be forced on them. We need it badly.

The only downside is that most if not all people would not like their bags searched and rumaged through publicly. Well, me too. But I would far prefer this and the knowledge I can board a plane free of bombs.

I will be interested to see what others think.

fletch4,

I agree that all checked baggage needs to be scanned, searched, sniffed or otherwise determined to be "bomb-free". However, this still doesn't solve the entire safety issue. As long as people can walk thru security with a gun undetected or the ramp agent can plant something on an aircraft that doesn't get searched, there is still vulnerability.

I do agree that your suggestion would make air travel safer, but not completely safe. I also agree that the expense or perceived inconvenience is negligible. Having my wife or one of my children die is certainly more "expensive" and more "inconvenient" than having my bags hand searched.

It does not solve the whole issue, I agree. But its a part and a part that is being almost completely ignored. At least some attempt at security to keep wapons off the plane is in place.

I agree that needs to get a lot better too.

I think this would be nice, but it sure does not slow me down from traveling. Why is that we think airlines are the only place in the world that might see a bomb. Why not the local mall, freeway, movie, terminal itself, subway, train, etc. etc. I do not feel guilty mentioning these and any bad guys thinking for about 1 minute would come up with these, and many, many more.

For some reason, we seem to be FIXATED on airplanes. 60-70 million people flew last month. Though I feel for those on the TWA flight, it was one flight.

Going through the luggage of 60-70 million passengers per month is quite a job. And I don't know about you, but once my suitcase is packed, I don't need someone going through it. Can you imagine those guys "repacking"?

I think we should definitely have PPBM, and bags should be x-rayed.

I'm with NoStressHere on the personal bag search though. It takes a few minutes to inspect one piece of luggage. It will then take a few minutes to repack that luggage. The way I pack, there is no extra space, i.e. repacking would be a good 20 minute operation. That would be way too much of a delay.

I wouldn't mind paying an extra couple bucks per ticket if the money would were to be spent on buying machines to scan checked baggage.

See also:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/005570.html

d

All bags in the UK are passenger matched, and all but the very small regional airports scan every bag before it is loaded. I am shocked and surpised that this doesn't happen in the US ?? That has to be one of the most basic security measures.

I hate to be Mr. Cost/Benefit Analysis, but someone needs to mention it.

Most articles I've read mention a definite false positive problem with the CTX/Invision scanners for luggage, usually rumored to be about 23% of all bags scanned.

Over one billion suitcases were checked last year in the US. Imagine how difficult positive bag matching would be to achieve if we scanned all suitcases: upwards of 230 million bags would need to be hand-searched because they set off the alarm (but contain no explosive).

At the often-mentioned capacity of 150 bags an hour, that's 35 bags an hour (per machine) that need intense searches. My checked bags are full, not empty, and would require at least 10 minutes to search and repack. Ever see the Lucy episode where she can't keep up with the machine?

If those numbers are valid, every hour of scanning would produce maybe six hours worth of hand-screening. Yikes!!

Next, let's see how many of these "Wolf, Wolf, Everywhere a Wolf" machines we would need. At max capacity, each machine could look at about 1,314,000 bags annually.

Problem is, the bulk of departures take place during the daytime 12 hours, not all 24.

A conservative estimate would require about 3000 of these scanners to handle peak traffic times. At stated prices, about $5 billion just for the machines. Not counting the labor to route the bags through, run the scanner and do the hand-searching. All of whom, I presume, have to be expensive federal employees, just like customs agents, most people say.

Is it all worth it?

If exploding airplanes were common, most certainly, YES.

But what if there aren't any bombs? For 20 or 30 years? Is all this effort still worth it?

It's not that I relish a mid-air explosion and the certain death accompanying same; I'm just not afraid of the possibility as are some people. And no, I'm not sure I'd be willing to charge every passenger $10 each forever to look for the non-existent (or really rare) bogeyman.

A better answer? Selective screening of bags belonging to those people most likely to be a threat, starting with:

One-way tickets bought for cash by illegal aliens.

Effective security will mean concentrating the efforts on the most likely terrorists, not the chairman of Intel and not me.

Bring on the "I'm proud to be an American" frequent flier expedited security screening pass; I'll take one, leaving the security people more time to look for Atta's friends.

Every minute spent looking through my kid's backpack looking for legal items (but recently banned by FAA) is time not available to prevent another 9/11. As Ann Coulter pointed out that week in her column, how many hijackers were stopped by all of our security efforts that day? Any?

How many more hijackings would we have if we simply let people get on planes without all of the silliness?

I feel for all the people gripped with fear who think the answer is any more than the four in September. There isn't a hijacker behind every pair of cuticle scissors.

I wholeheartedly agree with scanning all checked luggage, but as to cost (let's face it, the cost will be passed on through higher ticket prices) vs the number of actual bombs, I'll let others argue the point.
However, as to bag matching, I think the idea has too many loopholes (if these could somehow be circumvented I would be in favor of the idea).
-What about the terrorist that buys a ticket from A to B but gets off at an earlier stop?
His/her baggage is still on board- OOPS!
-What about the suicide terrorist that is willing to identify his/her bag with explosives? OOPS!


[This message has been edited by RicoWrite (edited 11-09-2001).]

"Why is that we think airlines are the only place in the world that might see a bomb. Why not the local mall, freeway, movie, terminal itself, subway, train, etc. etc."

NoStresshere - I am not just concerned about airplanes. I do have concerns about malls, sports stadiums, etc, but they don't seem appropriate topics for this forum. Airplanes are.

Unfortunately, current airline screening policies are "reactive instead of proactive". Changes were made as the result of 9-11. Proactive changes might have prevented the carnage of 9-11. Remember the airlines are a business worrying about their bottom line.

Folks, it comes down to this: we simply do not have the resources to check every single bag that comes through, period.

They're starting to use the computers to flag sketchy passengers now, and their bags get scrutinized. That is about all we can do at this time.

Now, maybe someday we'll have such good technology that we can run all the checked baggage through scanners and it will flag all suspicious bags accurately, but that doesn't exist now.

* if focussing on what could be loaded on airlines that doesn't belong to any of the passengers, don't forget (checked/unchecked) cargo
* I am not aware that the 9/11 tragedy had anything to do with screaning/not screening checked baggage
* I feel a lot more uncomfortable than on planes when driving in long tunnels (not knowing at all what the lorries before/behind me have loaded) like the St. Gotthard (Switzerland), the tunnels to/from Manhattan or the Eisenhower Tunnel on the (Colorado) Interstate when driving Denver - Vail.
* the 9/11 tragedy resulted in many more casualties on the ground than on planes




[This message has been edited by Rudi (edited 11-09-2001).]

As a follow up comment, If the USA cutback by 50% all the foriegn aid that the taxpayers provide to nations throughout the world, with this money the government can buy the baddly needed x-ray scanners for the airports so that ALL checked bags are screened. Not only that but with all those BILLIONS of extra dollars we could....don't get me started.

[SARCASM]Yes, those ungrateful *******s in the least developed countries who receive the equivalent of .09 per cent of US GDP (1997 figures) should just get in line like everyone else. [/SARCASM]

From 1946 to 1993 the US spent an average of 9 billion/year on foreign aid, but 35% of this was military assistance, aka government subsidies to the defense industry. Recent spending has been around 13 billion/year.

Get a life! The events of Sep 11 had absolutely nothing to do with checked baggage! The great American chicken is alive and well. The only thing matching baggage and customers and xraying all baggage will do is slow down system even more. It will be 4-5 hr checkins for flight. I am not willing to put up with that. I've flown 60,000 miles since sep 11. If you are afraid. Don't fly. Just don't expect the frequent flyers to share your fears or put up with your "the sky is falling mentality."
Life is full of risks. Getting up in the morning is a risk. I assume you do get up.