| << In our wakes 2 | 2006 > April | Tempo >> |
Security theater ::
At the SFO airport at 6 am Wednesday morning, I was looking for the shortest security line and one screener caught my eye and motioned me down. He had a fun new apparatus for me to walk through; you walk into an sealed chamber, air is blown up from the floor and apparently collected and analyzed for traces of explosives. Whee! I felt like I was in a sci-fi movie, being checked for biological contaminants before being admitted through an airlock into a space station. I bet they’re careful about who they put through it; I could see how many people would get uncomfortably claustrophobic.
I arrived at Atlanta around 2:30 pm. My flight to Syracuse wasn’t until 7:30 (bad connection probably a result of using frequent flier miles a few days after Easter and not having booked the ticket long in advance). There was an earlier flight to Syracuse at 3:45, so I made my way to the gate and asked if I could get on. Had I checked baggage? Yes. “Sorry, you have to travel on the same flight on which your bag is checked.”
Then there was some sort of security incident that left the airport strangely deserted for awhile, and delayed all the outgoing flights by 1-2 hours. I don’t know what that was, but it made for a very pleasantly quiet lunch.
My 7:30 flight to Syracuse left the gate around 9:30. Finally, in Syracuse around midnight, I watched in vain for my suitcase to appear. When it became apparent that it hadn’t been on the flight, I had a sudden suspicion ... yes, there is a big blue suitcase sitting right there in the Delta baggage office ... yes, it is mine ... and of course, my bag came on the earlier flight that they wouldn’t let me on because my bag wasn’t going to be on it.
You’d think that since terrorists don’t seem to care all that much any more if they die along with their victims and because both checked and unchecked baggage is being subjected to such good screening now (or so they’d have us believe), security might not be so strict about insisting that passengers and their bags stay together.
Or, you’d think that they’d crack down on baggage handlers like the ones in Atlanta, who apparently just saw SYR on the tag and tossed the bag on the next plane to Syracuse, rather than read the fine print (or use a scanner) to determine which flight to Syracuse the bag was supposed to be on.
| << In our wakes 2 | 2006 > April | Tempo >> |