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November 10, 2004


Airport experiences divide Americans

ANY doubts that the 'United' States of America had become a misnomer were dashed entirely when the results of the year's Presidential election were declared.

Until then, columnists, pundits and even US citizens themselves were saying that the country was polarized. How was not always made clear.

For many visitors from the UK and Europe, the division between those supporting the 'security' measures advocated from the White House and those holding the Bush administration in total contempt was created in the lines for airport security checks.

By September 2004, many Americans had decided that - despite the continuing and unresolved - conflict in Iraq, the skies had become safe enough for them to consider flying for the first time in three years.

For those individuals, the experience on the ground was a shock. Not only were they amazed to find so much over-staffing - with boarding passes and photo IDs being examined twice, if not three times, between the check-in desks and the electronic scanners, but the treatment there worsened their feelings.

Some elderly passengers were not told about taking off shoes and belts until they had been through the process once. They were confused and irritated by having to go through the system a second time.

In Albuquerque, New Mexico, one old lady in a wheelchair was given no help. She had to prize herself out of her chair to go through the scanner, only to be told she had to take off her shoes and go through again. None of the white-shirted and badge-laden officials from the Transportation Security Administration helped her.

She was clearly pained trying to bend and, when she had cleared the scanner - without incident - for the second time, she was left to get herself into her chair and put on her shoes without any assistance.

A moment later, a large black woman in her early 20s, enraged by the TSA attendant rummaging through her handbag let loose a stream of invective. Probably the only reason she wasn't arrested was the military ID around her neck and expletive-laden references to service in Baghdad.

Regular travellers smiled knowingly, their expressions indicating immediately that they considered most, if not all, the highly-expensive, labour-heavy security 'precautions' to be a worthless gesture to those taxpayers who never flew.

Even the briefest, most informal exchanges brought forth almost total ridicule for the Federal government, especially the evangelical neo-conservatives who were wasting so much time and money.

Frequent travellers had long repertoires of inconsistency and exasperation.

They told of Kansas City, Missouri, where none of the restrooms is inside the security zone. Passengers needing 'comfort breaks' between flights were searched every time they went.

At the Bob Hope airport in Burbank, a small airport serving the north west part of the Los Angeles conurbation, no x-ray scanners had been installed. So, every piece of checked-in baggage was swabbed for traces of explosives.

The admirable efforts of staff and technology have however been thwarted by sunscreen. Anyone who has touched their bags having used sunscreen within about 24 hours of travelling was likely to have transferred chemicals which tripped the explosives sensors.

Another passenger, having travelled through Chicago's Midway airport, Kansas City, Burbank, San Jose and Albuquerque was found to have a small allen key, measuring about two inches by one, in his wallet at Chicago's O'Hare airport, where - as 'a tool' - it was confiscated.