Tomorrow has been dubbed “Black Friday” by many of the nation’s airlines, as it is the day by which Congress mandated all checked luggage be somehow “screened” before it is…
Tomorrow has been dubbed “Black Friday” by many of the nation’s airlines, as it is the day by which Congress mandated all checked luggage be somehow “screened” before it is loaded. This article discusses some of the issues at DIA.
Most airlines are expected to choose bag matching. The other three options are deemed hopeless, because there are not enough explosive-screening machines, bomb-sniffing dogs or staff to hand-search millions of bags. However, airlines may use a combination of these alternatives.
DIA has just three explosive-detection machines, where it will need 20 to 40. It has just five dogs, and processes up to 10,000 bags an hour.
Bag matching (confirming that the passenger who checked the bag has boarded) is certainly the easiest to implement, though as a security measure it provides no defense against a suicide bomber.
Still to be determined is whether airlines will be able to exempt connections from the bag matching (which would render this effort completely pointless).
What’s particularly interesting about this, as the airlines scramble to provide some rock-bottom minimal amount of screening, is that the majority of people I talk to actually think this is already going on. Everyone already thinks that every bag is X-rayed or sniffed or otherwise confirmed to be okay — and if they aren’t, they should be. I fear the airlines are not going to get much sympathy from the public on this one, esp. if service further deteriorates.
The article also mentions a United statistic that 1-3 passengers, on average, check in but miss a flight — usually business people on an important call who decide to take a later flight. I suspect this will have some interesting consequences, one way or another.
Another item I’ve not heard discussed in this context is where flights are overbooked and passengers are offered the opportunity to board a later flight. In such cases in the past, any checked luggage of the person accepting the offer has simply been shipped onwards on the original flight, waiting for them on the other end. Will that still be allowed?
And, if not, is there going to be provision for someone to pick up their (removed) luggage there at the gate? Nobody’s going to want to have to exit the concourse and the secure area, pick up their luggage (somewhere), then go through a re-check process. Yeesh.
Of course, the other ironic aspect to all of this effort to make it less convenient and more difficult to check bags is that the airlines (and security people) would also like to require all bags be checked, i.e., no carry-on. That’s a whole other kettle of fish, of course, but it seems further away than ever under the present circumstances.
I really feel sorry for celebrities in general, and the President in particular. I mean, I, as an ordinary Joe Sixpack, can do things like trip over my feet, or wear odd clothes, or even end up passing out because a piece of pretzel hit some nerve that lowered my blood pressure and caused me to pass out and bruise my face. I mean, these things really do happen to ordinary people, and it becomes something that everyone has fun with in a friendly fashion.