IP: While we're on the subject of passenger outrage

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Brett Glass <brett () lariat org>
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2002 23:14:35 -0700
To: dave () farber net
Subject: For IP: While we're on the subject of passenger outrage

See the following two insightful columns from the Denver Post -BG


What's really changed?

By Ed Quillen, Denver Post Columnist

Tuesday, March 12, 2002 - Six months and one day ago, as the Pentagon and
the World Trade Center towers still burned, we heard many statements to
the effect that "This changes everything. Nothing will be the same."

The main change has come at airports, and since I seldom fly, I probably
wouldn't have noticed anyway. Every air trip I can remember has involved
standing in interminable lines and getting treated not as a paying
customer but like a suspect.

The idea was apparently to make you relieved to finally get on the plane,
packed and uncomfortable though it might have been, and then have this
suffocating and claustrophobic environment just sit there for a while
without any explanation as to why the publisschedule had lost all
meaning. Then it would move a few hundred feet, followed by another
mysterious delay as you wondered whether there was a contortionist school
you could attend to learn how to fit into a coach seat.

Eventually it took off; the delays were probably arranged so that you'd
get plenty of exercise trying to catch your connecting flight, whose gate
was always at the other end of the terminal.

And now even a nail clipper is contraband - not all that long ago, didn't
we make jokes about "I'm sorry I'm writing this letter with a crayon, but
they won't allow any sharp objects in the place I'm staying"?

All this screening seems pointless because on Sept. 11, only minutes
elapsed before it became impossible to hijack an airplane with box
cutters and a bomb threat.

The north World Trade Center tower was hit at 6:45 a.m. Mountain Time,
the south tower at 7:03 a.m., and the Pentagon at 7:43 a.m. By that time,
the passengers on United Air Lines Flight 93 knew what was going on,
thanks to cell phones.

After a vote and a shout of "Let's roll," they thwarted the terrorists
and kept the jet from hitting the Capitol or the White House. It crasat
8:10 a.m. in Somerset County, Pa., killing all 44 people aboard: 32
regular passengers, five hijackers, five attendants and two pilots.

Much has been made of the heroism of New York firefighters that day, and
they deserve such respect. But firefighters are paid to do risky work,
and they know that when they hire on.

The passengers of Flight 93 were just normal citizens flying from Newark
to San Francisco, and yet they met the occasion. After that, no terrorist
could plan on using pocket cutlery to convert an airliner into a
human-guided bomb.

So the issue was solved that day by citizens acting on their own without
any new government security programs, but that isn't the modern American
way? Nothing really changed....

More at:
http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1002,150%257E456665,00.html


And...

Surly skies beckon

By Michael Booth, Denver Post Staff Writer

Sunday, March 10, 2002 - Let's have some fun here: Let's design the worst
airline we can think of.

Remember, there are no bad ideas. Let's just brainstorm a little.

If we wanted to invent ways to make the flying experience as bad as
possible, we'd start in the airport parking lots. Let's remove all the
closest spaces and make people take a bus before they've even so much as
sniffed jet fuel from afar. If you are driving by to pick up passengers,
and your car slows down below 20 mph, our airline will arrest you.

Then we'll invent a bunch of guys at curbside check-in who may or may not
be working for the airlines, and who may or may not send your luggage to
Turkmenistan, depending on the tip.

Next will come the ticket check-in line. First we'll fire all the counter
agents except one. Then we'll make two lines: one for rich people, and
one for the rest of us. The line for rich people will have one person in
it, no waiting. The line for the rest of us will begin back in satellite
parking; your wait for the ticket counter in San Francisco actually will
begin across the bay in Oakland.

While you are moving through the line, our bad airline will make you move
our 300 pounds of luggage forward 6 inches at a time through a maze that
doubles back on itself 18 times, thus ensuring that by the time you reach
the counter you will have pushed a total of 84,000 pounds while moving an
actual distance of 6 feet.

Our newest innovation will be to pull you out of the line just when
you've reached the front and wipe your hands and luggage with a Swiffer.
Highly trained former grocery clerks will then put the Swiffer into an
EasyBake oven to analyze it for complex explosive chemicals. Don't worry,
they know exactly what they're doing. Then someone else will take your
luggage to a huge CAT scan machine to look for bombs. They will then use
loud voices to ask you questions about what they see: "Is that just one
beer bottle in there?" This happened. Really. And our fantasy-bad airline
will do it over and over again....

More at:
http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1002,171%257E446334,00.html



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