For the record, my grandmother flies to and from Canada at least once a year to visit family, and she always carries a little paring knife in her purse so that she can peel fruit in the hotel room. She’s never had a problem doing that. Of course, she’s also a white-haired, cane-carrying little old French-Canadian lady, so they might have gone easy on her 
Look, had United spent money to better impose regulations that their customers didn’t want upon them, they would have gone bankrupt beforehand. The fact is that even with the lax security that the US had prior to Sept. 11th, airline customers thought air travel was incredibly safe. Even taking into accounts the events of Sept. 11th, it still is incredibly safe.
Before 9/11 I carried either my Leatherman or my Swiss Army knife on every flight I went on, in the US, Canada, South America, Europe, and even England. No one ever stopped me, and the only comment I ever got on it was from a security lady at Heathrow who thought part of it was a balisong (until I showed her it was only scissors).
it doesn’t mean things will change.
A (lack of) Security Anecdote
Today was my 2nd post-9/11 flight.
On the 1st one (2 days ago), the security screeners:
-made me turn my cell phone on to show it worked
-made me take out and turn on my laptop for the same reason
Today, the “screeners”:
-didn’t say/ask/require a damn thing about the exact same items.
So, security conscious person that I am, after passing through the “screening” unquestioned, I went to the National Guardsman standing there with his automatic weapon, watching the “screener”, and asked (because I didn’t want to merely assume I knew the new rules) if the “screeners” were supposed to check my laptop because they didn’t and, if they were supposed to, I wanted to point it out to someone.
You know what he did?
He said, “yes” and “thank you” and then just stood there and did nothing also. I know because I was at Gate 3 and could see him and for the next 30 minutes as I waited to board my flight, he just continued to stand there and did nothing to bring this to anyone’s attention.
So I then told (including the Guardsman part) the airline gate person who was sweeping people with one of those detector wands, assuming that she was somehow involved in security, but she probably just thought I was another overly paranoid passenger and ignored me as well.
My points are,
-if security is not consistent, it’s essentially useless.
-who can be counted on to do this?
Jesus Christ Labradorian, you have to be one of the most heartless fucks in the universe. What’s wrong with you? If UAL goes “mams up” there are going to be plenty of tears shed, especially by the hundred thousand employees who will be out of work. As a current employee of United and a former employee of Pan Am, FUCK YOU.
I can assure you, by the way, that plenty of people shed tears for Pan Am, especially after Lockerbie, but I would imagine you think that was their fault too.
(For everybody but Labradorian, I am perfectly willing to discuss the real issues that are in play here and I acknowledge that gross mismanagement at UAL has led to a lot of their problems, but Labradorian is going well beyond the realm of reasonable discourse so I’m not going to entertain those issues here. Labradorian reminds me of those people who say that women who dress provocatively deserve to be raped. No point in discussing anything with them.)
BTW, Labradorian, in case you didn’t notice, that’s FUCK YOU (no “l”).
“Jesus Christ Labradorian, you have to be one of the most heartless fucks in the universe. What’s wrong with you? If UAL goes “mams up” there are going to be plenty of tears shed, especially by the hundred thousand employees who will be out of work. As a current employee of United and a former employee of Pan Am, FUCK YOU.”
I love you too.
I don’t much like cussing in public, but here goes:
The miserable sons of bitches who ran these pathetic piece of crap flying disasters-waiting-to-happen were responsible for airport security; they were fucking well happy enough to have this task deregulated, and take it on as their own; but they were too fucking cheap to pay to have the job done right, and treated security as a frill that they sacrifice in the name of competition; and then they fuck up, and they scare tens of millions of people out of paying for the services of their own fucking industry; and NOW they want the same people, in their capacity as taxpayers, to bail them out?
FUCK 'EM.
Fuck 'em with a ten-foot knife.
Fuck 'em with a metal-detecting wand.
Fuck 'em forty-three ways to next September with a twisted girder from lower Manhattan.
The whole fucking lot of 'em, UA, Air Canada even, can bloody well kneel down and take a long hard slurp of unchopped anatomy; and no, Hastur, it’s significantly larger than mosquito-sized.
I don’t suppose knowing any actual facts would change your mind, but what the heck.
From the available evidence, it appears that the hijackers exclusively used weapons which were perfectly legal to bring on board an airliner at the time. In other words, the Al Queda operatives were sufficiently cawed by the existing security infrastructure that they did not try to smuggle guns, etc. onto the aircraft.
UAL could have hired ex-Green Berets as security people and paid them $1 MM/year plus a bonus for every item confiscated, and they still would have had to stand there and watch while the hijackers put their boxcutters into the little tray and walked through the metal detectors.
And why was the regulation set up that way? Because no one in the entire world thought you could successfully hijack an airliner with a blade under 4 inches in length. Not the FAA, not the airlines, not the NTSB, no one.
Thanks Manhattan, that was well said. I have to add that the genius behind the terrorist plan was that they took advantage of the standard operating policy (as devised by the FBI) concerning hijacks and that was to do whatever the hijackers said, take a ride to Cuba and negotiate. How else can you explain how they commandeered an aircraft with a 4 in. blade? The only thing that might have impeded the events on 9/11 would have been if there were air marshals on board. The reason there weren’t any is because prior to 9/11 there were only 32 air marshals in the entire US. So, labradorian, if you feel that you need to deflect blame away from the terrorists and place it on somebody else, why not the federal government for decimating the air marshals budget and reducing them to an ineffective force. As far as the airlines are concerned (and I am speaking for myself here, not the airline I work for) they had enough sense to realize that a metal detector isn’t going to stop a terrorist bent on self destruction so they elected to spend as little on it as possible in order to provide those low fares that that the flying public insists they must have. We could have safer airplanes if the flying public was willing to pay for it, but in reality, they aren’t. Please note I said safer, not completely secure. It is impossible, when confronted by a determined terorist, to make an aircraft (or anything, for that matter) completely safe. That is why we need prosecute these terrorists to our fullest ability and prevent them from being able to exist. That is really the only way you can remove the threat.
Now as for you, labradorian, you seem to have an axe to grind against the airlines. Why you insist on telling the airlines to fuck off and die while completely ignoring the fact that it was the TERRORISTS who actually committed the crimes is beyond me. Maybe you were denied an upgrade once, who knows? I would you suggest you get over it.
You know, Lab, if you didn’t have 500 or so posts, I’d swear you were just trolling.
That’s exactly the problem.
And the industry failed to avert to that risk.
I walk past the US embassy on my way to/from work almost every day. It’s fantastically secure, with all the latest high-tech gadgets, fancy materials and techniques used in its construction, tightly-spaced bollards all round, and armed guards.
How many times, in the year and a half between the opening of this building and the terrorist attack, did I think to myself… what is stopping somebody from flying a plane right into this building?
It doesn’t take a super-active imagination to come up with these scenarios… the terrorists call them working plans.
There was just such a hijacking at the airport I fly into most frequently ca. the late 1970s. Low-security airport (at the time), small commuter airline, small plane. It was nothing more than a crackpot with a pocketknife imitating the recent fad of “take me to Habana” skyjackings, and it was treated as a joke at the time. But incident reports like these make there way through the industry.
I am under the impression that at least until September 11th, the stringency of airport security at any given airport was up to whatever the lead airlines using that airport were willing to pay their contractors to do. That was of course subject to any additional security bells and whistles that any given airline (e.g. El Al) might wish to institute in respect of its own services, equipment, personnel, and customers.
I’m not trying to any of the blame that is rightfully addressed to the terrorists; however, there is also blame for failure, as opposed to blame for malicious and evil acts, that deserves to be meted out.
I would blame the governments, but not for that. I think the Air Marshall program is mostly an unnecessary expense, IF tight, mandatory standards are in force, and effectively executed, on the ground: right from the travel agencies to the check-in to the security check to the gate agent. However, the appropriate ground measures were for far too long treated as a frill that could be cut in a competitive industry.
I am well aware that 100% security is not possible; however the risk that finally came to pass last month was hardly a remote one, and I find the economic rationalization for having taken that risk to be disturbing.
Well, maybe they should ask the TERRORISTS for their bailout.
And in that year and a half did you contact anyone at the embassy and voice your concerns?
Now, before I comment, I want to be sure I understand.
Labradorian, are you pissed off that the United States government might provide financial support/assistance to airlines that were grounded by the FAA for security purposes and kept from operating for several days? You base this objection on the fact that airport security didn’t prohibit some 20 odd individuals access to planes were they were able to use thin-bladed box-cutters and threats of bombs to take control of four planes and crash them.
Your profile indicates you reside in North West River, Labrador, Canada. Are you a citizen of Canada or the United States?
Thanks.
Interesting though that Southwest Airlines, who actually had a solid business plan in place before 9/11, isn’t in danger of going bankrupt. They are doing far better than the other airlines. These other airlines were in trouble way before 9/11.
Hmmmmmm…as I recall, no one hijacked a Southwest Airlines plane either. I would imagine the negative publicity of having YOUR planes be the ones doing the damage might be a factor…Naw! I’m sure that has no role in this…
Labradorian, yes the airlines could have installed hundreds of security devices on their airplanes, hired green berets to act as security on board, run a ten year background check on every passenger and charged you $10,000 a seat. How long would an airline been in business then? The worst part is, even if they do all the things you say they should do, it STILL won’t make aircraft 100% secure. For example, what’s to prevent an psycho who is off airport property, but near the approach pattern from sending up a hand held missile or an RPG and taking down an aircraft that way? You can’t prevent everything. What about your office building, your pizza place and your city bus. All of those things are potential targets. (I use office building, pizza place and bus as examples because all of those locations have been bombed in Israel over the last few years.) Should we force Luigi the pizza maker so spend tens of thousands of dollars on bomb detection equipment? Because even when your slice costs $150, the security won’t be airtight. A determined suicide bomber can do all kinds of damage in all kinds of places, not just airplanes. How about owning up to the fact that if there weren’t terrorists, we wouldn’t have to worry about any of this. Place the blame where it belongs.
You’re almost certainly right, but I feel like, having defended United here, I also have to defend Southwest.
Southwest has in fact made a conscious decision to run itself in a less indebted position than any other major airline, except for Alaska Air before they got into FAA trouble and had to borrow a bunch.
Additionally, they have kept their unit costs lower. This is partially by underpaying their people (Booo!), partially by keeping their entire fleet interchangable (and all Boeing. Yayyy!), and partially by careful route selection (eh.).
So even if a Southwest plane had been among those hijacked (which wouldn’t have happened, as they fly no 75’s or 76’s, but still), they would have been in a better financial position than AMR or UAL.
I wasn’t aware that it was only United and American that were asking for government help. Is that the case?
It seems that people are afraid to fly which is affecting the overall industry. I haven’t heard that it was only those two airlines that people are afraid to fly on. But if they are the only two that are asking for “corporate welfare”, then I stand corrected.
And now the travel industry in general is asking for government help too. So, if I’m in the hotel industry or a travel agency, the government should bail me out too? What about if I manufacture luggage?
It’s all been said. Thanks for the eloquence tevya.