Open Letter to (name deleted) Airlines
 

I travel (name deleted) frequently because my daughter is a flight attendant for another airline, which airline has a reciprocal agreement with you. So, I'm flying as a non-revenue passenger (viewed by you folks as a one-way ticket each way). Apparently one-way tickets get increased scrutiny from the security system. (Thank heavens, it's rare to hear any of your employees refer to the system as "random" any longer, since it's quite obvious there's some behind-the-scenes selection system.)

Obviously, security is a scarce resource. You can't scrutinize every single passenger completely AND offer the kind of low airfares you do to your regular passengers. This alone makes it imperative to use your resources efficiently.

I think you'll agree that a parent of one of your flying employees is probably a very low risk, and that this would extend to the parent of someone who flies for another airline. My daughter is a flight attendant for (name deleted) Airlines.

I find that I am singled out for secondary security screening about 80%-90% of the time I travel with your airline. While this is a minor and endurable inconvenience, what REALLY concerns me is that people common sense tells me are a much higher risk than me are not being screened. Since your flights seem to carry about 90 to 130 people, and since only four or five are screened, it's quite apparent that the frequency with which I'm selected has NOTHING to do with randomness, and constitutes a waste of your limited security resources.

It seems to me that with a little records-keeping on your part, you'd know that I fly your airline a lot and usually fly return trips, even if my tickets are technically one-way.

I urge you to consider what's safest for your passengers and crews and not allow yourself to be drawn into the "who has the most politically correct security screening system?" contest. I'm not saying stop and frisk every person who looks vaguely middle-eastern. I am saying that when your passengers see little old ladies in wheelchairs and 10 year old boys being subjected to secondary screening, your passengers roll their eyes. And if they knew that a parent of an airline employee was being singled out for screening while someone much more suspicious seeming gets to walk right in, they'd be concerned, too.

Please use your dollars security-smart, not PR-smart.

Anyone knowing people on the airlines should be checked 4 times.

This is how shit is done.

Do you really think its not an inside thing that goes on?

And do you think they are to "remember you" because you fly a lot?

I have friends who never touch ground and get treated like shit on planes because they are wild rocker bands.

And spend 400 just on drinks on a flight from MSY to LAX.... no one should be treated special.

cheap bastard should buy his tickets - then he wouldn't have probelms.

Good God.

a) But I am selected for "special" treatment.

b) There is NO evidence I'm aware of that the 9/11 terrorists received any inside help.

c) Perhaps your friends should get special treatment because drunks ARE a big problem on airlines.

Oh, like you're telling me you wouldn't take advantage of any travel discounts that allowed you to visit your daughter more frequently (if you had one). Hypocrite!

hahaha

no doubt my satanic tatted up friends and me in first class always get hella stares from peeps like you who get the *special treatment.

Special treatment? You're like the kid with free lunch, no special treatment,. In fact you're singled out, which is why you are being checked .

What movie was it where the little old lady goes thru the metal detector and it goes off and they are searching her bag and find something like fingernail clippers or something and in the background there are a bunch of stereotypical terrorist ragheads going thru the metal detector with AK47's and rocket launchers and sword? I think it might be Airplane. Scary how that scene is almost reality these days although I doubt the guy with the bazooka would get it on the plane now because it wouldn't fix in the overhead compartment or under his seat :winkwink:

I wouldn't be complaining if I was allowed to travel for free.

And what was it with the fingernail clippers anyway? "If you don't let me fly this plane into the Lincoln Memorial, I'm going to clip this lady's nails!"

Well, thanks for taking a serious discussion into an a dopey direction. The people flying on the flight with me would rather fly on a safer flight than see that I get hassled because I'm paying less, don't you think? Or are they as stupid as you seem to imply?

why does it automatically mean discrimination, racism, profiling or some other unjust reason?

why cant it just be that you look like a real suspicious mother fucker that freaks people out?
:2 cents:

pay for your own flights you cheapass. people like you are the REASON soo many airlines are going broke. I say CANCELL ALL THE FREE FLIGHTS for all the cheapasses like you. EMPLOYEES ONLY. FUCK THEIR FAMILY - FUCK THEIR KIDS - FUCK THEIR PARENTS - JUST EMPLOYEES,

Last Januarly I flew to LA and had a similar experiance.

Prague to New York no problem.
Then the NY to LA had all my bags security checked.
Then on the return leg LA to NY got security checked again.
NY to Prague again a full security check.

All these security checks were "random" and after my bags had gone through the Xray machine. Plus on the NY to LA flight there were three Turkish students in front of me who were not checked.

It was also done before they checked my ticket, which was a return ticket,I was just pulled out of the line. So I must fit some sort of profile of your typical terrorist. Greying/thinning, middle aged European, white business man.

It just makes you feel so much safer!!!!!

Unseen has a twin? WTF? No wonder you two fight like brother and sister. Now...which is the sister?

Oh wait...Unseen shaves his head.....Nevermind. I guess that makes Charly the sister.

sleazydream why dont we fly an "elite" plane right up your fucking ass and through ur mouth, so u would finally stop spouting complete and utter shit on each post.

Do u really think that people like "unseenworld" are the cause of plane companies losing money? More than likely the plane company allows him to travel on planes which are not taking full capacity therefore is smaller fare is an extra addition to what they would have had previously.

And before u say the flight was free, IT WASNT read is fucking post u moron.

charly come on man, u tell me what a typical terroist looks like? there is not one, as far as they know u could be one.

Bullshit. They all wear towels on their heads and carry C-4 in their carry ons.

Duh!

No matter what the "reason," if its results are stupid, the reason is stupid, no?

lol

my thinking is though, if these terroists are smart enough to organise "september 11th" they are certainly capable of knowing that if they come in with towels on their head they might get searched......

Wasnt a ex USA soldier recently arrested as being part of the Al queda (spelt wrong i know) network?

That's right. I fly on a "space available" basis. Airlines are like any other business, giving their employees benefits (in this case, allowing my flight attendant daughter and her family some low-cost flying on a space available basis). If you work in a bakery or clothing store, you'll get freebies or discounts. It's the same with airlines.

Just rest assured: they do mean "space available." There have been times when I couldn't get on board the flight I wanted. No one holding a ticket has ever been bumped to make room for me.

Serious profiling should mean a lot more than singling out people with certain headgear. It should also have something to do with a system to eventually categorize people into relative risk categories. I've flown often enough on this airline that they should know I'm a frequent flyer by now, even if I do fly on one-way tickets. I'm not quite sure about the one-way ticket aspect either: do they have some intelligence telling them that terrorists are particularly frugal, and so wouldn't buy a round trip because they know they are not coming back?

just because u are a frequent flyer, does that make u less crazy? maybe u flied alot, and now have got in with a group and fancy blowing the plane up?

or maybe it is because u keep wearing ur GFY shirt? :1orglaugh

are you high?

there is no typical terrorist?
thats the biggest crock of liberal, politically correct bullshit that i have ever heard.

there is a typical terrorist that hijacks airplanes and is sworn to kill Americans and Infidels... and they are not teenage kids named Bjorn from Greenland, Swedish nurses or nerdy kids from Kansas named Ferd.

People are always bringing up fairly far out possibilies ("Why couldn't it be a blind woman in a wheelchair...it's possible isn't it?"). We live in a real world where budgets are limited, so the rational thing to do is to use the money as wisely as you can.

If you're going to consider that kind of possibility, you then should subject every single person to a secondary search. Which raises another question, since everybody has to be searched at the entrance to the gates, and then just SOME people are searched again just before getting on the plane, why not then simply search everybody just before they get on the plane?

you know far too much about terrorist budgeting, finance and accounting practices :eek7

Now come on do you really believe SleazyDream is a hypocrite? If I may ask what else do you think he is...:Graucho

are u high? or totally incapable of reading a post?? thats what i was fucking stating moron.

yes, i am high

No shit, he should be cleaning the plane after the passengers leave.

Hence, the extra security search.

And if your daughter worked in a bakery and you got free bread, should you have to mop the floor in thanks, or isn't the bakery simply showing some goodwill to a valued employee?

You're on an irrelevant sidebar.

Stop whining... PLEASE!

Why not think of something original...for a change.