Not quite.
We got through customs and immigration relatively painlessly and waited anxiously at the baggage carousel, keeping an eye out for our sole piece of checked luggage. As the minutes ticked by, we came to the realization that the suitcase wasn't going to magically appear.
At the customer service desk for US Airways, we spoke to a nice but apologetic man called Sonny. He scanned our baggage receipt barcode and verified that our suitcase had indeed made it onto the plane. He scouted around the carousel area briefly for other left luggage and discovered two that were vaguely similar to our suitcase. His theory was that someone had taken our bag by mistake and forgotten their own. Unfortunately, he couldn't get in touch with either of the owners of those pieces of left luggage. He assured us that they usually found missing bags by the following day and that our suitcase would be delivered to us the next evening.
This highlights one of my biggest complaints about the baggage retrieval process. Every customer with one or more checked bags gets a barcode attached to his ticket that corresponds to the bags that he checked. It seems to me that an additional verification check when a customer leaves the airport, confirming that he does indeed have his own checked bags and not someone else's, would be relatively straightforward and would cut down on the number of mistaken and intentional baggage mismatches.
I filled out a missing baggage form and gave them our contact info for letting us know if and when our suitcase was found and would be delivered. In passing, Sonny also mentioned that our bag might be on a different plane. Hmm. But didn't the system scan verify that our bag had indeed made it onto our flight? Yes, he said, but occasionally the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) removed bags for further security checks and didn't notify the system.
Grr. Doesn't that circumvent the whole point of tracking bags?
Thankfully, Kyenta got a call the next day informing us that our errant luggage had indeed been found and would be dropped off that night. An airport van drove by at around 9:45pm and lo and behold, we had our suitcase back. I took it inside, opened it and discovered the following form placed neatly atop our clothes:
The part that infuriates me is the casual absolution of responsibility for any damage incurred: "[...] however TSA is not liable for damage to your locks resulting from this necessary security precaution". In order to facilitate these random security searches and prevent your luggage from being vandalized, you need to leave them unlocked, making your personal belongings less secure.Transportation Security AdministrationNotice of Baggage Inspection
To protect you and your fellow passengers, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is required by law* to inspect all checked baggage. As part of this process, some bags are opened and physically inspected. Your bag was among those selected for physical inspection.
During the inspection, your bag and its contents may have been searched for prohibited items. At the completion of the inspection, the contents were returned to your bag.
If the TSA security officer was unable to open your bag for inspection because it was locked, the officer may have been forced to break the locks on your bag. TSA sincerely regrets having to do this, however TSA is not liable for damage to your locks resulting from this necessary security precaution.
For packing tips and suggestions on how to secure your baggage during your next trip, please visit:
We appreciate your understanding and cooperation. If you have questions, comments, or concerns, please feel free to contact the TSA Contact Center:Phone: 866.289.9673 (toll free)Email: TSA-ContactCenter@dhs.dov
*Section 110(b) of the Aviation and Transportation Security Act of 2001, 49 U.S.C. 44901(c)-(e)
The easiest way to commit a crime is to legislate it.
4 comments:
How do you envision security for "ideal" air travel?
It's a pretty hard sell to tell people they are statistically better off to ease up on security and accept that a few more planes will/might go down.
Your question has many facets.
Suppose we wanted to maintain/increase the high level of security checks going on in airports these days. Let's have some transparency and accountability. A few examples:
- Publish the "do not fly" list.
- Publicized arbitration process for removing your name from the "do not fly" list.
- Match bags to passengers on entry and exit from airport.
- Random baggage checks entail that the TSA goes through the same scan check to ensure that a bag's location is always known.
- Ban on liquids entails airlines provide water bottles during flight.
- Properly trained security personnel.
- Security details for "behind the scenes" access (e.g., the airport tarmac).
- etc.
Get rid of as much of the "security as theatre" aspects as possible.
And as far as "ideal" air travel? It's a balance between security and freedom. There are about 40k deaths caused by cars in the U.S. per year compared to about 1,500 airplane deaths per year in the world.
Personally, I'd rather have less security (or more accurately, more accountable and transparent security) and more freedom. Other people have different tolerances.
I think that the big problem with enacting reasonable airline security is that the perceived risk is is so much different than the actual risk - for example, driving to work feels so much safer than flying anywhere that rational decisions become fairly challenging.
Personally, the possibility of having a relatively long time to think about your impending demise is what bothers me the most about flying.
On the other hand, two minor yet pretty dang expensive wars is a pretty high price to pay for having insecure planes...
The only idea I have is to restrict the maximum size of aircraft to the point that they can't be effectively used as weapons. Less possibility for carnage makes a lot of the security concerns moot.
I agree that it's not a rational decision; that shouldn't stop us from striving for rationality. It's a hard sell though.
I think the airplane size restriction falls under the security-as-theatre category. A sufficiently wealthy and resourceful terrorist cell might decide to pack a Cessna full of C4 and pilot it themselves.
And finally, I don't think you can necessarily lay the full cost of these two wars at the feet of insecure planes. Why, if only Archduke Ferdinand had a better security contingent, we wouldn't have had two world wars.
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