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Bogus bomb scares. Porous airport security. Whistle-blowing air traffic controllers.

It sounds like the plot of straight-to-DVD disaster movie — or, on second thought, maybe the premise of a new British TV comedy — but sadly, it is neither. They’re actual events, and they happened last week here in the United States.

In fact, the last week of July 2007 was as close to a textbook example of what’s wrong with security in air travel as it comes. But each event also offers a lesson or two about what needs to be done to fix the problem.

Is all this security just for show?

You couldn’t help but wonder after a Phoenix TV station showed footage of employees at Sky Harbor International Airport walking into secure areas without being searched and given only a cursory identification check.

It reminded me of an incident this spring, when 13 handguns, an M-16 type automatic weapon and several pounds of marijuana were smuggled on a Delta Air Lines flight at Orlando International Airport by two men who avoided checkpoints because they were employees.

The Transportation Security Administration promised to tighten security in Phoenix. But a good place to start might be to make sure the bad guys can’t get their hands on a TSA uniform, which, according to one report, was readily available from a Salvation Army thrift store.

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