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Originally Posted by kazbates
If people feel every safety precaution has been taken, they are more likely to travel by air.
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Really? Ask frequent business travelers how they feel about the absurd liquid restrictions, taking off their shoes, taking the laptops out of their cases, etc., etc., etc.
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It may sound cynical, but air travel is a business and a business exists to make a profit.
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Yes, they do, and these security measures actually cost the airlines money by making it such a hassle that their best-paying customers, business travelers, are starting to avoid flying as much as possible. (Businesses like gotomeeting.com, though, are thrilled every time flying gets a little more time consuming and unpleasant.)
Making Ma and Pa Kettle who fly once a year on extremely discounted coach tickets feel "safe" does not make the airlines profitable. Making it convenient for the most frequent travelers, however, does.
What most Americans seem unwilling to accept is a simple fact: there is no way to prevent 100% of suicide terrorist attacks, not on airplanes or anywhere else. Any measure taken has a potential countermeasure. Make people stay in their seats for an hour? Ok, they'll blow the plane up 80 minutes before landing.
What should be done before inflicting new "security" measures is determine whether the additional burden outweighs the potential benefits. Making people sit like statutes in their seats for an hour without anything at all to do before landing does not truly make the plane more secure. It just makes the paying customers miserable.