Some time ago, wrote a light hearted comment on the early days of airport security. Sadly, what I experience and read about now, makes me glad that I had the best of days: this bullying by wannabe police officers has become wholly unacceptable.
A while back a U.S. airline had a luckless passenger that made the mistake of saying that (his friend's) violin?-case, contained a machine gun. It was an obvious reference to the days of Capone, and was the unguarded - and no doubt foolish - words of an ordinary nervous passenger. Bravado shows itself in strange ways, but this does not make this young chap a potential hijacker. When he had gained his freedom, the airline told him that he was banned for life. He is probably still paying back the fine.
The security people, the police and the airline, had no right whatsoever in treating this man as they did. There is no doubt in my mind, that had he had the wherewithal (hard cash ) to take this to the higher echelons of the legal profession, he could have successfully fought, and won, a case on the grounds of violation of human rights. Sending a man to jail - even just police cells - for a nervous joke, is not on.
In the case of the AF pilot: well, he clearly should have known better. But to haul him off - to the determent of hundreds of passengers - is nothing short of crazy...who are they punishing? It seems to me, that the answer is everyone...except the bas****s that are guilty of a crime. Okay, we must never forget the bewildering horror of 9/11, but the answer is the same: we must not punish a continuous stream of innocent passengers and hard working aircrew.
It takes a long time to become a police officer, and even then it takes the wisdom of Solomon to be a good one. We cannot allow this continued bullying of aircrew by inexperienced (to put it politely) "officers" to continue. When I wrote the original comment, I suggested that we should not hurt the investors and operators by inappropriate action. Now I am suggesting, that not to take very determined action, will ultimately hurt the industry a great deal more.
Clearly the first line of attack must be via a stepped up effort on the part of the Pilots, c/c and engineer's unions. They have done good work on safety issues in the past, with the rider that they, as a band of people, tend to be rather....and I'm struggling for a good word here.....gentlemanly. We have to have an established set of rules governing aircrew access to their aircraft, that is the same world-wide. If there is any action taken that goes beyond the standard, then they should have to explain this to appropriate governing bodies. Every single time. And perhaps the local government should have to compensate the airline and passengers where no good cause is found for the delay.
Time and time again, I find myself talking to, and hearing of, people with good jobs that can no longer stand the hassle and delays caused by airport security. Some have already given up their jobs, others are trying to find a way to do so. My experiences are obviously the very small tip of the iceberg. Further, a large number of the internal passengers in the U.S. are on work related jorneys. The delays are not just hurting a vacation, but whole companies. This has not reversed, or even stopped increasing...it's getting worse, and they are our bread and butter.