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Airport Insecurity?

© Carey Goodman

The lines are longer, the employees are quasi-federalized, but has much really changed for security at US airports since 11 September?

For those of you who would qualify for membership in an Infrequent Flier Program if such a thing existed, here is the way the airport security experience typically operated before 11 September: You drive to the airport, you fight the traffic to find that one parking place that means you won't have to hassle with dragging your baggage the half mile to the terminal because you know those intra-airport shuttle vans are never reliable. Then you haul yourself and all your stuff to the terminal and go to the check-in ticket counter where you rid yourself of your baggage, and it proceeds to places that are not on your agenda while you are en route to your known destination. Or you could do curb-side check-in, send your baggage on its way to exotic baggage claim areas, then fight the herd to park.

Whether you used curb-side check-in or went to the counter, the ticket agent would ask you such questions as: "Did you pack your bags yourself? Have you accepted any items from any unknown people? Has your baggage been with you at all times?". These questions became mandatory after PanAm Flight 103 exploded over Lockerby, Scotland in December 1988. Supposedly an airline who employs a ticket agent who fails to ask these questions will be fined $10,000 by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), but if this policy were enforced, the FAA would be the wealthiest government agency. These questions remain part of standard airport security procedures, but they seem to be asked less frequently now than they were in the pre-11 September world of air travel.

You answer "yes" or "no" at the right times and with a straight face, you show some photo ID, you go through the metal detector, you go to your gate, and you board your flight. End of experience.

Now things are slightly (but only slightly) different. After 11 September, curb-side check-in disappeared, but within a month it resurfaced as basically the same system it was before the terrorist attacks. The main difference is that now no one can park within 300 feet of the terminal, so whether you do curb-side or go to the counter, you still have to deal with getting your baggage there. If two or more people travel together, the curb-side computer only indicates one ticketed passenger, so you are told that "for security reasons" you have to go to the ticket counter in the terminal. You lug your luggage inside and join the line, and by that time you understand entirely why they call it "luggage". Then you wait and wait and wait until...a half hour...an hour...an hour and countless minutes elapse. Moving at a pace that at times would place you second in a race against a snail, you finally reach the counter. Maybe you were asked to open your bags when you parked that half mile away; maybe you never had to open your bags for anybody to inspect their contents. The ticket agent seems much more interested in looking at the lousy photo on your ID that gives you that "hey, don't I look like a convict!" image than he/she seems to care what might be in your baggage. Your baggage is placed on the conveyor belt, and it typically proceeds to other exotic baggage claim departments you will probably never visit rather than joining you on the correct flight. All this time you thought there were rigorous checks now to be sure you and your bags got on the same plane. The main purpose of those counting procedures seems to be: "Just be sure the right number of bags are there, not necessarily that the right bags are there".