Each time I travel, I am thankful.
I am thankful, for instance, that history will remember convicted airline terrorist Richard Reid as the Shoe Bomber, not the Suppository Bomber. Had Reid, who attempted to down a transatlantic airliner with explosive-packed sneakers, chosen a less conspicuous means of hiding his weapon, airline travel would be quite different today.
And a whole lot less comfortable for us poor schmucks flying in coach.
As it is, we are routinely subjected to an experience that's only slightly less pleasant than a root canal and nearly as expensive. Just this week, I stepped off a seven-hour flight from Edinburgh, Scotland, and into a tiny room at New York's JFK International Airport.
Arranged therein was a maze of lanes, not to mention a crew of airport security employees who spoke, looked and carried themselves like folks who either worked or lived at the nearby Rikers Island correctional facility.
Our passports were screened by a young woman whose ID tag revealed the remarkably incongruous birthname Charisma. She sneered and snarled at each of the exhausted passengers as if she were planning to punk us out for our lunch money.
"GET Y'ALLS BOARDIN' PASSES AND PASSPORTS OUT NOW 'FO YOU CAUSE THE LINES TO BE BACKIN' UP," another shouted.
In the same tone, this Transportation Security Administration employee demanded we remove our shoes, laptop computers and, if she'd been in a fouler mood, I'd imagine, our false teeth. Being a Wilkinsburg native, I was accustomed to people like this. How this reflected on our fair nation to, say, a shy, retiring Japanese businessman or a couple visiting New York for the first time from Belgium is anybody's guess.
Airline travel doesn't have to be such an unpleasant affair. The industry -- if it cared about the passengers who support it -- could make flying seem more like a vacation than a prison induction center if they'd adopt a few sensible changes.
Among them:
⢠Just because someone will work cheap doesn't make them the best employee. Having airport personnel who are unable to conduct themselves in a professional manner is a bad idea.
⢠Adopt proactive, not reactive, security measures. Fliers should demand a national database of passengers who've passed security screenings and are, therefore, excluded from nonsense such as having to remove your shoes.
⢠Larger accommodations, please. Americans are getting larger, while airline seats are shrinking.
⢠Ask us, don't tell us. Our laptops don't hit the conveyor belt any faster when we're being screamed at.
