December 28, 2009

Everybody is up in arms about the possible bombing of the Amsterdam - Detroit Delta flight on Christmas Day.

The passenger came from Nigeria, changed at Amsterdam then on to Detroit. He slipped through security with some explosives strapped to his body which fortunately did not explode as he wanted it to.

Now comes the Monday morning quarterbacking. From the government down to the news media they are all in a frenzy about what did not happen, what could have happened and what to do from here on to prevent this from happening again.

It is amazing how shortsighted they all are. And they are at our expense. They are playing with our lives. Nothing happens for a while then the authorities decide to ease the restrictions because they are convinced that everything is hunky dory, brotherly love is back again.

Why is it that nothing ever happens to the Israeli airline El Al? Because they NEVER let their guards down. For many years now their security is better than anybody's, they never let their guard down.

I can see what is happening. When we are returning from outside this country the security is really very cursery. They are going to the motions without really caring. The people who conduct these security checks are locals. They are probably low paid and have absolutely no motivation to do a thorough job.

Which really applies to the staff at the American airports also. They are low paid and untrained. When there is a crowd and the equipment breaks down they get overwhelmed.

Just because they confiscate water bottles, mother's milk or make us take off our shoes and belts don't make us feel any safer. When I see them looking at the screen checking the carry on luggage on the conveyor belt I am convinced most of them have no clues what they are looking at.

Up to a few years ago the Caribbean island we go to vacation had an old airport. Security was limited to the flights coming to the US. KLM, Air France passengers were not exposed to the same luggage search as the American travelers. Our airline as well as the others hired their own personnel to check the luggage that were to be checked in. This was done manually before going to the counter.

I remember when at one time the guy opened my suitcase and asked what was in it. I told him it was mainly dirty laundry. He took his hands back so fast it was amazing. Told me to close it and proceed.

This was not only at the Caribbean but it also happened in Europe.

Does this give anybody the warm fuzzies about the security?

Now with the tightening of the security measures airlines will have another excuse to make travel more uncomfortable. And, add another charge claiming it costs them more now than before.

The government is playing ping pong with this event. They are all gung ho about it now but it will fizzle like verything else. When the Pan Am plane blew up in 1988 over Lockerbie and killed 270 people it turned out that the government was aware of something but they never did anything to prevent it.

Politics is a dirty business. I am sure their thinking is that sometimes they have to make sacrifices to get certain points across.

At least this is the way I see it from the bottom.

There was a lot of finger pointing afterward but that was the end of it.