Has anyone traveling to LOS had issues on airplanes?

[TotallyOz]

Since the Northwest flight was almost attacked a few days ago, I have many friends who have traveled and they said they airlines had really tightened up things. A good friend said that he was limited in his carry on luggage in First Class domestically. He had never had this issue before.

 

Has anyone else been traveling noticed anything? I have a flight New Year's Eve (not to LOS unfortunately) and worried that my quick trip down and back is going to be a problem.

[Gaybutton]

worried that my quick trip down and back is going to be a problem.

Different airlines have different policies. Why not simply call your airline and ask what their restrictions are?

[Guest fountainhall]

Reading the international press this morning, you are likely to have a delay of between 2 and 3 hours due to the extra security measures now in place. These include 'patting down' (not a wholly unpleasant experience if the officer is a cute young guy - but sadly that's unlikely)! Passengers on flights between Europe and the USA are once again limited to just one piece of cabin baggage, and most airlines are waiving the charges for additional bags in the hold. The other regulation is that during the hour prior to landing, passengers can not leave their seats, and can not have anything on their laps - and this includes books, blankets, iPods - everything!

 

What really amazes me is that the Nigerian guy who tried to blow up the Delta plane was able to evade all the much tighter US entry procedures that have been in place for some time. Even his father admitted he had Al Quaeda sympathies, he was on a US Homeland Security watch-list, he purchased his flight with cash and was travelling from Africa to the US with no luggage. As a frequent flyer, I'd like to know how so many people could have missed all the warning signs. But a big 'bravo' to those passengers who prevented a major disaster.

[pong]

having made some 60+ returns EUR-BKK/or nearby in Asia, and flying this evening toward snow, I cannot really recall having any experience. The normal overbooking/upgrade 2-3 times, lost luggage-never on these routes (but more to/fro USA), and then the through the years gradually sharpened safety restrictions (could easily once take all in a small cabin-bag years ago for 1 week holiday-impossible now). I understood the sharpened safety was mainly to/from the USA-but in airports where there is screening in general and not at gate (as BKK/Swampy has also recently switched to)-that will be impossible to differ.

[pong]

Reading the international press this morning, you are likely to have a delay of between 2 and 3 hours due to the extra security measures now in place.

My national online newspaper stated that flights to the USA-with drastically sharpened safety-were for 60% on time, and the rest up to 20/30 mins late. Neither did it state that passengers were required/asked to come much earlier as before.

[Guest fountainhall]

My national online newspaper stated that flights to the USA-with drastically sharpened safety-were for 60% on time, and the rest up to 20/30 mins late

 

I'm not sure to which newspaper you refer, and I can only guess that it's report concerns non trans-Atlantic flights. I certainly don't make these reports up, as the following from today's newspapers bear out! London Daily Telegraph -

 

Tens of thousands of people flying to the US for the New Year break have been forced to endure delays of up to three hours after strict new security rules were imposed overnight in the wake of the attempted terrorist attack in Detroit

- from The Guardian, London -

 

All passengers leaving UK airports for the US were being frisked and their hand luggage manually searched at the gate, leading to typical delays of two to four hours

- The New York Times -

 

passengers at airports in the United States and around the world encountered stiff layers of extra security, with international travelers undergoing newly required bag inspections, body searches and questioning at security checkpoints and before they boarded planes . . . There also were unspecified measures at airports in the United States, where lines at screening machines grew long

- Los Angeles Times -

 

Because of the tighter security measures, airlines and governments worldwide advised passengers to arrive at airports early and to expect delays, missed connections and canceled flights

Lastly, a check a few moments ago on www.ukairportdelays.com shows that almost all of today's incoming flights from North America are delayed by an average of more than two hours.

[Gaybutton]

"Tens of thousands of people flying to the US for the New Year break have been forced to endure delays of up to three hours after strict new security rules were imposed overnight in the wake of the attempted terrorist attack in Detroit."

To my way of thinking, this airport security is more of a farce than anything else. They might as well put The Three Stooges in charge of security. Why should it take extremely long lines and hours to do these checks? I think mainly because typically at airports they have three or four security lines, if even that many, to check hundreds of people at a time, all trying to make their flights. Meanwhile, despite all of that, this nut carries explosives and still manages to board a plane. So, in the usual fashion of shutting the barn door after the horse has left, now they're going to beef up security.

 

Yep, now they're going to beef up security. Isn't that wonderful? Anybody really find that reassuring?

[Guest fountainhall]

. . . this airport security is more of a farce than anything else . . . Why should it take extremely long lines and hours to do these checks? I think mainly because typically at airports they have three or four security lines, if even that many, to check hundreds of people at a time . . . Meanwhile, despite all of that, this nut carries explosives and still manages to board a plane. So, in the usual fashion of shutting the barn door after the horse has left, now they're going to beef up security.

 

Yep, now they're going to beef up security. Isn't that wonderful? Anybody really find that reassuring?

There's a good discussion going on now on Larry King Live as I type. One panelist has made the point that in the last 10 years there have been approximately 99 million flights landing in the US. Of these, just six are known to have been terrorist-related: the four on 9/11, the Richard Reid shoe-bombing attempt on an American Airlines Paris/Miami flight, and the latest Amsterdam/Detroit attempt last week. The view is that it's too easy to go overboard on security because the system, since 9/11, has basically worked well.

 

I don't buy that. Any aircraft going down as a result of a terrorist bomb is a disaster for the poor souls on board, those on the ground who might be killed, and the airline industry in general. It's also a huge boost to the terrorists. Frankly, I'm all for rigid screening, even if that means I have got to turn up an airports much earlier.

 

As GB rightly points out, though, airports seem always on the back foot. All airline passengers pay massive taxes when they fly. I just booked 8 flights to and around South America near the end of this year using frequent-flyer miles. But to get the tickets issued, I had to pay the staggering sum of almost Bt. 40,000 in surcharges!! Apart from the airlines which get the fuel surcharges, why are the airports and governments who are the beneficiaries of these taxes not putting them back into much-improved airport security, more equipment and more staff so as to improve efficiency and reduce the often-nightmarish procedures for passengers? Stupid question I suppose! One thing for sure is that security is going to be tighter and flying even more problematic for quite a long time in the future.

[Guest gay_grampa]

To my way of thinking, this airport security is more of a farce than anything else. They might as well put The Three Stooges in charge of security. Why should it take extremely long lines and hours to do these checks? I think mainly because typically at airports they have three or four security lines, if even that many, to check hundreds of people at a time, all trying to make their flights. Meanwhile, despite all of that, this nut carries explosives and still manages to board a plane. So, in the usual fashion of shutting the barn door after the horse has left, now they're going to beef up security.

 

 

 

 

There's a good discussion going on now on Larry King Live as I type. One panelist has made the point that in the last 10 years there have been approximately 99 million flights landing in the US. Of these, just six are known to have been terrorist-related: the four on 9/11, the Richard Reid shoe-bombing attempt on an American Airlines Paris/Miami flight, and the latest Amsterdam/Detroit attempt last week. The view is that it's too easy to go overboard on security because the system, since 9/11, has basically worked well.

 

I don't buy that. Any aircraft going down as a result of a terrorist bomb is a disaster for the poor souls on board, those on the ground who might be killed, and the airline industry in general. It's also a huge boost to the terrorists. Frankly, I'm all for rigid screening, even if that means I have got to turn up an airports much earlier.

 

 

 

Remember the words of the IRA spokesman the day after they had narrowly missed killing Margaret Thatcher in the Brighton bombing: "Today we were unlucky, but remember we only have to be lucky once. You will have to be lucky always."

 

I would not have liked to have been on that plane to Detroit and am thankful that security is being beefed up. Yes, it will take us all longer to get to our destinations but what is the alternative?

[Gaybutton]

Yes, it will take us all longer to get to our destinations but what is the alternative?

I think the alternative is to provide competent training, employing more security staff, paying them a decent wage, and placing fully trained and equipped sky marshals on every long haul international flight. I would be willing to pay more for my ticket to have real, reliable security.

 

Unless the security staff in Amsterdam was asleep or just not paying much attention, then it seems to me that the security tactics and equipment currently in place don't measure up to the necessity. Beefing up that kind of security doesn't reassure me. I think the reality will be nothing more than beefing up the illusion of better security, but the actual security won't be much better than it already is.

 

Feeling safer doesn't help much if you are not truly significantly safer than you already were.

[fedssocr]

Exactly. It is total theater to make people believe they are somehow safer.

 

These idiotic new rules making everyone sit strapped to their seats for the last hour with empty hands and laps is beyond stupid. If a terrorist really wants to blow up your plane why wouldn't he just do it 90 minutes before the end of the flight? Or immediately after take off? Where does it all end? I also have been reading on frequent flier forums that airlines are being required to shut off their IFE systems because of the real time moving map function.

 

Real security with well-trained, properly paid security personnel would be a great idea. But all of these over the top measures that make flying even more inconvenient are just going to lead to more and more losses for the airlines as fewer people bother to put up with it all.

 

And anyway, was the issue the screening he received at AMS or when he left Nigeria in the first place? Once you get past the first screening and are airside typically you can move to your departure gate without further screening.

[Guest fountainhall]

Unless the security staff in Amsterdam was asleep or just not paying much attention, then it seems to me that the security tactics and equipment currently in place don't measure up to the necessity

Sorry GB but I think you are incorrect about Amsterdam. Schiphol airport started using the world's most advanced body scan screening equipment in May 2007. It now has 15 in operation. There are just 40 in 19 airports throughout the whole of the USA!

 

There is an article by two New York Times reporters reprinted in today's Houston Chronicle. It quotes a Schiphol spokesperson saying on Sunday that the airport is -

 

prohibited from using it (the scanning equipment) on passengers bound for the United States, for a reason she did not explain

 

On another site, I have seen it mentioned that this reason is a legal challenge by civil rights groups in the USA. As reported on another thread earlier this year, these machines render an image virtually of a naked person and this is regarded as an invasion of privacy - even though images are seen only by one person in a separate room and no images are retained. It therefore seems that Amsterdam is not allowed by the US government to use them on American-bound flights! Had they been in operation for the Detroit flight, they would have picked up the explosives hidden in the bomber's underwear. If the article is accurate, then this seems to me the most ridiculous and dangerous adherence to so-called 'civil rights'. It totally denies me my right as a passenger to have the best security available prior to boarding any plane I choose to fly.

 

was the issue the screening he received at AMS or when he left Nigeria in the first place? Once you get past the first screening and are airside typically you can move to your departure gate without further screening

 

Sorry fedssocr, this is not true - at least of all the international airports in my experience. After landing and prior to moving from the arrivals to the departure area for your connecting flight, you go through the same security screening process as all departing passengers.

[Gaybutton]

Where does it all end?

It doesn't end. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see a day come when no carry-on luggage is permitted at all and every passenger has to sit strapped into their seats stark naked for the entire trip, being forbidden to leave their seats at all, and told to use the barf bags if the need arises to use a toilet. Better not have a cup of coffee or a bowl of prunes before a flight. I'm waiting for space shuttle astronauts, just prior to a launch, to be asked if they packed their bags themselves.

 

It doesn't matter what security steps they take and doesn't matter how absurd it all will get. No matter what they do, sooner or later someone seriously trying to be a terrorist and bomb a plane will figure out how to beat the security. This time the passengers were lucky. Apparently the only reason they didn't end up blasted into Hades is because this guy botched the job.

 

Meanwhile, now passengers will be confined to their seats for an hour and a half and apparently won't be allowed to make potty if they have to go. So here it is folks! From now on we're going to stop terrorism by refusing to allow passengers to take a shit and refuse to let them see the real-time map. I don't know about others, but that certainly makes me feel much safer and secure . . .

 

"Nanny babykins should have told daddykins that he had to make pottykins."

- Maj. Fincham, 'Von Ryan's Express'

[Guest fountainhall]

More news on the bomber. Whilst the USA, having put him on a watch list, failed to revoke his visa to the US, the UK government announced today that it denied him a visa renewal and also placed him on an official watch list to prevent him from re-entering the country. Further, this procedure would normally involve American authorities being informed of the action Britain had taken.

 

My national online newspaper stated that flights to the USA-with drastically sharpened safety-were for 60% on time, and the rest up to 20/30 mins late

Just to update my earlier post, delays are getting worse.

 

Passengers headed to the U.S. from Canada, Europe and other foreign airports faced hours of delay - LA Times

 

Travelers faced huge lines and absolute bedlam today - Toronto Star

 

Chaos at Heathrow and other British airports with delays reaching up to to five hours - The Times, London

[Guest fountainhall]

I think the alternative is to provide competent training, employing more security staff, paying them a decent wage, and placing fully trained and equipped sky marshals on every long haul international flight. I would be willing to pay more for my ticket to have real, reliable security

Real security with well-trained, properly paid security personnel would be a great idea

There is an excellent article in today’s New York Times which bears out the sentiments expressed by GB and fedssocr. The following part was written by Richard Bloom, the director of Terrorism, Intelligence and Security Studies at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and vice chairman of the Aviation Security and Emergency Management Task Force of the Transportation Research Board.

 

The biggest hole is how we think about airline security. Tightening airline security is fruitless if it merely pushes a problem to some other transportation mode or some other target. Worse, thinking in terms of “holes” in security distances us from thinking about the system as one in which any one factor can affect many others through time. I believe that counter-terrorism efforts could be made more effective by doing a better job with the four layers of airline security.

 

One layer involves appraising the threat — determining who out there is targeting aviation, what methods they seek to use, and the where, when, and why of these methods.

 

A second layer involves security measures based on risk, not threat or vulnerability alone. Vulnerability pertains to all the things that could go wrong with specific airlines, airports, aircraft, and flights with each being rated as to the impact on U.S. interests. Threat and vulnerability together provide an estimate of risk, and security measures should be created to minimize it.

 

A third layer involves finding bad people (e.g. terrorists) or bad things (e.g., explosives). For people, that means using traditional intelligence methods as well as data mining and behavioral recognition techniques. Finding weapons and explosives also requires traditional methods and technologies that can identify the physical characteristics of devices. However, as the sophistication of terrorists goes up, the value of these approaches goes down.

 

Finally, a fourth and critical factor involves psychological issues. The performance of security personnel would improve with better training in dealing with low probability events and better human resource management, including better pay and respect. The politics of security versus privacy needs to be better handled by our political leaders so that one doesn’t needlessly hurt the other. More controversially, as long as many U.S. citizens expect a system that will eliminate all risk, the system is likely to remain a terrorist target. This is because terrorism’s targets are not just those who are killed, but the public that becomes aware of the killings and destruction.

 

I think it is not 'accidental' that one airline with an almost unblemished security record is El Al. I have never flown the airline, but I believe one of its several layers of security is to have profilers at every check-in counter. These officials closely observe every passenger for signs of nervousness or abnormal behaviour and then question any they find suspicious. My view is this would be far more effective than increasing the numbers of sky marshals who, let's face it, might only be effective in stopping an explosion if seated in a row very close to the bomber. If not, they'd be killed along with all the other passengers as the plane exploded.

[firecat69]

I flew yesterday on Thai Air Los Angeles to Bangkok. I saw absolutely no difference except for increased screening of large suitcases and boxes for the returning masses from America.

[Gaybutton]

My view is this would be far more effective than increasing the numbers of sky marshals

What's wrong with doing both?

[Guest fountainhall]

What's wrong with doing both?

Nothing - except cost, I expect. I do think, however, that spending more time and money on ensuring bombs and bomb making equipment do not get on to a plane is a far more effective use of funds than trying to deal with a bomber once the plane is in the air. If I recall correctly, sky marshals were a response to the specific events of 9/11 when terrorists got into cockpits and took over the controls. With reinforced cockpit doors, that eventuality is highly unlikely to happen again. Equally, I cannot see a bomber getting up and announcing himself just so a sky marshal can shoot him. Any terrorist is deliberately going to go about his business in the most unobtrusive way possible to ensure he is not noticed. So I don't quite get the argument for increasing the number of sky marshals.

 

Whilst on the topic of mass murder in the skies, I hope another leisure industry is taking note about security. I have for long thought the most effective terrorist act would be to pack a light private plane full of explosives, file a flight plan that takes it over one of the monster cruise ships now sailing around the world, and then do a kamikaze number on it. That could have far more devastating effects on numbers of people and an entire industry than downing an airliner.

[Guest GaySacGuy]

I flew yesterday on Thai Air Los Angeles to Bangkok. I saw absolutely no difference except for increased screening of large suitcases and boxes for the returning masses from America.

 

Where did this "increased screening" take place?? I often check in in Las Vegas with another airline, and check my bags through to BKK.

[firecat69]

Where did this "increased screening" take place?? I often check in in Las Vegas with another airline, and check my bags through to BKK.

Los Angeles airport did have long lines for the bomb scanners for checked baggage and it seemed to be slower then normal, but since I did not check any bags there were no increased surveillance to my eyes.

[Guest fountainhall]

It does seem that the really long delays are at airports with flights in to the USA - especially across the Atlantic and from Canada. They are much shorter on flights ex-USA and across the Pacific.

[Gaybutton]

I don't quite get the argument for increasing the number of sky marshals.

I don't know whether sky marshals would be an effective deterrent or not, but I'd rather give it a try. Of course, that might simply add to the illusion aspect of security.

 

As far as a "kamikaze" attack, I doubt that would ever happen. It takes quite a bit of skill to aim a commercial airliner at a ship, actually have the skills it would take to maneuver the aircraft, and then actually manage to hit the ship. Of course, terrorists wouldn't need to hijack a commercial airliner to try it.

 

We keep harping on the security of passenger flights. My fear is more about the level of security on cargo flights. How well are cargo or charter aircraft secured against hijackers somehow getting on board and pulling off another 9/11?

[Guest fountainhall]

Of course, terrorists wouldn't need to hijack a commercial airliner to try it

That's precisely my point. I doubt it could be done with a commercial airliner. But a small private plane is all they need to create mass murder. They could rent one, fly it to a small airstrip -say, somewhere in the Caribbean area where many of the mega-cruise ships operate, and take off once they know a cruise ship has just left a port not too far away. All the cruise lines publish their schedules a year or more in advance, so their ports of call are common knowledge. It would not take long to find such a large vessel - and then 'boom'! Don't forget, side on these mega-cruise ships offer a considerably larger target than the World Trade Center and small planes are much more maneuverable than commercial jets. I think it's scary!

[Gaybutton]

They could rent one

I suppose I'm being nitpicky and I'm not missing your point, but for the record you can't just walk in and rent a plane. Whoever is to fly it has to prove proficiency in the plane by presenting log books, his flight and medical certificates, type ratings, often pass a written test, and pass a proficiency check ride in the actual aircraft, often under instrument conditions. The types of people likely to want to crash a "kamikaze" flight into a ship are very unlikely to be able to establish a level of proficiency sufficient to qualify to rent a plane. Even the 9/11 terrorists knew only enough to be able to find where they were trying to go and then crash the planes into their targets. You don't need major league instruction if your intent is to hijack a plane already in flight and use it to commit suicide, but you do need the major league instruction to rent a plane. Better still, a plane large enough to carry enough explosives to cause catastrophic damage to a cruise ship often requires two pilots.

 

Maybe they can rent a submarine, with a good supply of torpedoes.

 

In other words, I don't think there is much to fear from terrorists if you're on a cruise ship . . . unless that cruise ship happens to be the Achille Lauro.

[Guest fountainhall]

I suppose I'm being nitpicky and I'm not missing your point, but for the record you can't just walk in and rent a plane

Of course it would not be easy, but they could also purchase a plane - from rebels in South America, for example. I can't believe it's that difficult to obtain a small 4 - 8 seater prop plane. When you think of the huge sums of money spent by the terrorists in the lead-up to 9/11, cash would surely not be a major obstacle. As for organisation, 9/11 proved that this again would not be impossible.