chicago security
 

Airline Security Anyone?
(Whose country are we in anyway?)

Place: Chicago O’Hare (ORD) America's heartland
Airline: United
Flight: UA 1538 leaving 1440 (late as usual) ORD to GSO
Time: Oct 12, 2001 or one month and one day after the Taliban bombed NYC.
Players: Pakistani airline security, Palestinian Arab, and an American Navy
Veteran that flew over 150,000 miles with United last year (a 1K premier)
and over 100,000 this year.
Subject: Airline security

Ok, ok, I’m impressed by all the talk about heightened security and such...
however, this is my story. As I’m approaching the gate in America’s heartland
and biggest airport, Chicago O’Hare, I engage a Palestinian Arab from Rumallah
by the name of F..d in a brief conversation near the gate. Someone had tried to
explain some info to him about boarding, but he only spoke Arabic. Now being
a former U.S. Navy veteran that learned Arabic, Albanian, etc. at the Defense
Language Institute, I’m being personable and trying to help the gent. Not to
mention, checking him out a bit, because I have to ride the same airplane and
am still a bit wary.

Apparently the Pakistani guy at the front gate doing security for United
felt a bit differently. First of all, Mr. T.... K.... boarded the Palestinian
ahead of everyone else, including first class passengers (which seemed to be
highly unusual as he did not appear to be disabled or handicapped in any way
and was sitting in the back row); then he must have thought that someone who
flew so much with United (he knew that I was a 1K/frequent flyer) must have
looked suspicious and needed a body search. Hence he pulled me out of the line
for a real good going over... while everyone else boarded.

Now being a worldly kind of guy, Navy brat, former Navy linguist, disabled
veteran and all - I thought to myself "what a bloody irony!" Here we are, still
recovering from a blast from the Taliban straddling Pakistan and Afghanistan, and
a Pakistani from that area working security at an United airline gate in America’s
heartland, pulls aside a white guy (1K frequent flyer/disabled vet) flying in first
class to subject to a body search while he deferentially allows a certain F..d
from Rumallah to board ahead of all the others with no visible rationale.

Somehow I must be in the same surrealistic mindset where I saw the planes flying
into the WTC... somehow, with all this rhetoric, it just doesn't make much sense for
me to stand in really long security lines, when you have the above scenario take place.
Even the sweet lady that was working with the Pakistani looked extremely askance at
the aforementioned T.... K.... when he asked me to submit to a check. So much so that
when I stated that I should write to someone about the treatment, she agreed.

I was thinking that mine was a singular incident, however, when I expressed
my concern to the flight attendants (a few who had flown flights with me before).
One of them shared a similar experience that occurred recently. Taking all of this
in the greater context of the many problems Chicago is having with their lack of
security employee screening makes one wonder for whom the security is really intended.
Does anyone else see something wrong with this picture?

jomar - I'm surprised the flight crew did not react to your concerns. This is an unusual set of circumstances and certainly would make me leery of getting on the plane w/o a third party checking things out. I know we have heard about pilots going overboard by refusing to fly with passengers based on nothing but their ME appearance, but this case just looks bad, even it was not.


[This message has been edited by runningshoes (edited 10-13-2001).]