Swiss Security Gap

[arcniz]

In this context, the concept of 'weapons' in the cabin has multiple levels of meaning.

One level is "able to do mortal harm". Fists, feet, neckties, etc. fall into this category, along with weapons like guns and knives that project harm over distance or increase its efficiency.

Another level is "able to invoke fear", and by doing so to change the course of events.

Perhaps thanks to Holywood, many people would be more essentially fearful of being savaged by a fistful of conspicuous needles than of being atomized in a nuclear millisecond.

Theater is an essential component of successful terrorism.

So a few less props surely wouldn't hurt from an anti-terror POV.

But there is a threshold to change anything.

The main argument for not changing LX cabin procedure would likely be: "because that's how we've always done it. It is cheap, and neat, and it works." So the real issue is whether the not- clearly-envisioned risk is valued high enough to overcome 'reluctance to change' (in view of modified criteria), plus the financial hit of writing off all those old seat needles.

LX could invest a few hundred francs, with hungry ETH students consulting on the cheap, to develop a string of scenarios about what smart, vicious, ballistic maniacs can do with a quantity of not so very long needles. That might set the point in clearer perspective.