Well we can look at incidents in the past to see how they've gone. The "shoe bomber," UA 93, hijacking attempts on El Al: examples where passengers, crew and/or cockpit security has prevented terrorists from achieving their objective. Sadly, the passengers on UA 93 died, but they did prevent the terrorists' primary objective -- and did so after they willingly gave the hijackers control of the plane in the first place.

First, the evidence indicates that it's very difficult to get off the no-fly list.

Second, you make the leap from being able to get off to the list being a good policy. People shouldn't be harassed by the no-fly list in the first place, even if they can get off it (which only happens after giving the government all kinds of private documents and effects that people shouldn't have to give the government). If people could get off it immediately at the airport with low transaction costs, I might support the list. Unfortunately, that's not now or ever going to be the case. We could get rid of the list now and bring it back later if it became possible to instantly and permanently remove people from the list at the airport.

Who said that? The question is a risk assessment and many of the items currently being done do not meet the standard. For example, the President of Continental does think that the FAM program is not really necessary given hardened cockpit doors.

And he has no economic skin the game, right? So we should just accept his opinion and enact it. This notion that hardened cockpit doors have rendered airliners safe from takeover is absolutely false.

Everyone that flies has economic skin in this game. He also has a bigger risk. If there was a reasonable scenario in which the FAM's were indispensable and CO didn't have them, the additional liability would be staggering.

CO has about 42,000 employees. I think that it may have some good info and analysis to support his position. In my opinion, it takes a lot of courage for a major airline president to stand up and say that we don't need FAM's. I applaud that.

Of course you do. I call him a man willing to put every single passenger and employee of his company at risk in order to open up two sellable seats on every flight with FAMs.

A successful terrorist attack on his airline (or even on another US flag carrier) would likely cost Continental more money than the loss of a couple of seats here and there. Thus, in his estimate, the risk of a successful attack must be quite low.

Statistically, the risk of a terrorist attack in the US is extremely low. But, since you think it's such a large risk, you might not want to fly Continental, or any other airline for that matter.

The notion that hardened cockpit doors has not provided any improvement is false. Nobody has said that a hijacking is now impossible, just much less probably than it was before.

Uh-huh. In fact, every time a Continental plane takes off, the company puts every passenger and employee on board "at risk." The plane could crash!

Every time you leave your house, you take some risk, and you can't completely avoid it even by staying home! Only the most simple-minded among us believe that risk can be eliminated. Thoughtful people weigh risks against the cost of mitigating them. With regard to FAMs, the cost far exceeds the value of the risk reduction.

Bruce

Good thing no one ever made that contention.

The notion that anything will render airliners safe from takeover is absolutely false.

How about if we park them in the desert and remove the engines? That's the only thing that would make some people feel safe.

Bruce

Or we could just open up a special seating zone for weapons, so that innocent people won't get caught in the crossfire while you guys have your libertarian shootouts.

You guys is metaphorical, and doesn't refer to you specifically, uness you join those who would "feel safer" were they allowed to protect us all by bringing weapons on planes.

Personally, I was ecstatic to find out an airline executive finally had the guts to stand up and say the FAM program was wasteful given other mechanisms that will prevent the takeover of an aircraft are equally, if not more effective.

He also made it clear the FAM program was responsible for 'taking' First Class seats, against the wishes of the airline, and they didn't like it one bit.

Given the hardened flight deck doors, the expectation of TSA screeners to keep guns off the plane, the willingness of passengers to intervene when they feel threatened, and the expectation that flight crews will never, ever ever ever open that flight deck door under duress or threat, we can conclude the FAM program is pretty much unnecessary.

Even if some evidence shows the presence of the FAMs *could* improve security (by helping the sheeple to feel safer), I see no reason (and nor does CO) for them to occupy First Class seats - except only as an issue of comfort.

HUGE kudos to CO for taking a verbal stand on the issue!

The CEOs of Delta and American said basically the same thing, even earlier.

Bruce

Guns don't belong on planes. Period. That includes FAMs!

I have no desire to "feel safer." I prefer to be safer, regardless of how I (or anyone else) happens to feel. But I'm not willing to write a blank check to the guardians of my safety, because they would certainly spend all the money I have -- and then some! That's the problem. Nobody is opposed to safety per se. Some of us would just like to weigh the additional safety against its cost. Does that sort of analysis interest you, Mike (or Brian)?

Bruce

Actually I did not know that - I thought the airline execs were keeping quiet about these nuisances for fear of retribution. So now I have to ask the question...if they are all on the same page, and are vocal about it, certainly they can put together a stronger lobbying response and get some changes made.

The then-CEOs of Delta and American (Mullin and Carty, as I recall) testified before a congressional committee some time in 2002 or 2003. They said that the FAM program is unnecessary and costs their companies hundreds of millions of dollars a year in unsellable premium seating, among other things. Their testimony was quoted here shortly after it happened and should be searchable.

Unfortunately, it went in one ear and out the other! Congress is convinced that the public wants -- even demands! -- FAMs and all the other ineffective security nonsense. Until we -- the public -- let Congress know that we don't support this silliness, it will continue.

Bruce