Airport Security

In the wake of the recent attempted terrorist attack, security is no doubt going to get “stronger” at airports. Hopefully that’ll mean increased safety, but if the past is any indicator, it’ll also mean longer lines and greater inconvenience. And though I want to preserve life as much as possible, I believe that making air travel more miserable simply isn’t worth the added safety. In fact, I’d gladly accept a slightly higher risk of death if it meant an easier time getting to my plane.

Back before 9/11 flying was kind of fun. Family and friends could go all the way to the gate and travelers didn’t have to take off a bunch of clothes to get through the lines. Things moved more quickly and, at least in my case, it was an all around better experience.

Of course we’ll never go back to those free wheelin’ days, but adding more and more security doesn’t always make sense. Flying today has become a kind of ritualized humiliation, and adding to that isn’t going to make anyone excited about traveling. This is particularly true of the naked body scanners that will probably be deployed soon; not only will you have to take off your belt, shoes, etc., you’ll also have to submit to being seen in the nude by some TSA person.

The result of this increasingly humiliating experience is that revenue will go down, prices will go up, and unpleasantness will proliferate. The added time that yet another machine introduces to the process will further drive flying toward pointlessness. For example, it already takes five hours or more (including driving time getting to airports) for me to fly from my home in Provo, Utah, to Southern California where I grew up. If I have a lay-over, it’s much longer. Conversely, I can drive to the same place in about 9.5 hours, so flying doesn’t even cut that in half. The longer it takes to fly, the more likely I am to drive.

Besides the inconvenience of added security, it’s also questionable just how effective it is. Does confiscating my shampoo really make the world safer? I would argue it doesn’t and that most of the current measures are simply in place to give frightened travelers a (sometimes false) sense of security about their trips. After all, an apparently inept terrorist thwarted the security we currently have; I’m sure that a professional from Al Queda could figure out a way to slip past the naked-scanner.

All this is to say that rolling out more delays just isn’t worth it. The chance of dying in a terrorist attack is still small, even without added security. In fact, it’s much smaller getting in a car wreak or dying in countless other ways. What’s more, people seem to believe that flying should be risk-free, even though that’s an impossible goal. Everything involves risk flying remains one of the lowest risk ways to travel. If naked scanners or other measures actually sped up the process or made it more streamlined, I’d be interested in seeing them used. However, so far no new security measure has ever made things faster. Ultimately, then, it’d be better to simply accept the risk of dying in an attack. If not, we’ll have eventually made airplanes so safe that we never actually let anyone get on them.