Gulliver's travels
I just arrived back to Alberta after attending Tyler's wedding on sunday. Great time.
Well, except for the flying part. Not a real fan of the flying thing. And why is it that as I'm getting a lift to the airport I always read about airline tradgedies? Five minutes from check-in and I open up the newspaper directly to this story:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5162082.stm about 150 people dying in a plane crash. At this point I'm crossing my fingers that Westjet has better quality control in their airplanes than the particular S7 Airlines Airbus in Siberia. Thankfully, I am not writing this entry from the great beyond.
So next I proceed to the check-in and get asked the two most annoying questions:
"Did you pack your bags yourself and are you aware of the contents of your bags?"
"Did you leave your bags unattended at any time?"
Obviously, since anyone could just lie, the questions alone won't catch someone who has planned to bring something dangerous on the plane. Or would they?
WestJet Check-in agent: Did you pack your bags yourself and are you aware of the contents of your bags?
Traveler: Yes ma'am. Just a pair of clothes, a book and a bomb. I mean, not a bomb. A toothbrush, not a bomb!
WestJet Check-in agent: AH-HAH! Foiled again!
Or maybe the questions are meant to find dangerous items that have been placed with innocent travelers?
WestJet Check-in agent: Did you leave your bags unattended at any time?
Traveler: I don't believe so. Oh wait, maybe. I did leave my bag for a few hours while I was touring that Nuclear facility in North Korea. On returning it seemed to be a bit heavier, but I didn't think anything of it. Next, I did have that vacation in Colombia, where I asked the Cali Cartel to look after my bag for a bit. And oh wait, there was that brief jaunt to the ghettos of Detroit where I left my bag on the bus and then found it four hours later. But that nice group of gangbangers assured me that they weren't stowing their contraband and weapons in it. I haven't really checked it since those places, but I'm sure everything is fine.
WestJet Check-in agent: Well that seems reasonable to me. Hmmm, on second thought, maybe I will give it a quick check.
In reality, there is a reason the two questions were first adopted. In 1986, a security guard for the Israeli airline El Al questioned a pregnant Irish woman at London's Heathrow Airport and discovered her Jordanian fiancee had duped her into carrying a bomb onto an Israeli jet.
However, what started as meaningful has become essentially irrelevant. In the United States and Canada, the questions were reduced to two and people (such as Westjet check in people) were never trained to interrogate passengers properly. If the questions were being utilized properly, a trained interrogator would ask some simple queries while looking for reasons to ask further questions, such as shiftiness or conflicting responses. Now you get the desultory way the check in people ask the two questions, as if it were a rote stupid task to get through. Internationally, the security people ask the questions and they do the unnerving stare-into-your-eyes thing when they ask. This makes the person end up feeling guilty even when they don't have a contraband salami.
I'm not advocating interogations, but I am advocating scrapping the two questions if they are going to be used in the manner that they currently are.
Well, except for the flying part. Not a real fan of the flying thing. And why is it that as I'm getting a lift to the airport I always read about airline tradgedies? Five minutes from check-in and I open up the newspaper directly to this story:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5162082.stm about 150 people dying in a plane crash. At this point I'm crossing my fingers that Westjet has better quality control in their airplanes than the particular S7 Airlines Airbus in Siberia. Thankfully, I am not writing this entry from the great beyond.
So next I proceed to the check-in and get asked the two most annoying questions:
"Did you pack your bags yourself and are you aware of the contents of your bags?"
"Did you leave your bags unattended at any time?"
Obviously, since anyone could just lie, the questions alone won't catch someone who has planned to bring something dangerous on the plane. Or would they?
WestJet Check-in agent: Did you pack your bags yourself and are you aware of the contents of your bags?
Traveler: Yes ma'am. Just a pair of clothes, a book and a bomb. I mean, not a bomb. A toothbrush, not a bomb!
WestJet Check-in agent: AH-HAH! Foiled again!
Or maybe the questions are meant to find dangerous items that have been placed with innocent travelers?
WestJet Check-in agent: Did you leave your bags unattended at any time?
Traveler: I don't believe so. Oh wait, maybe. I did leave my bag for a few hours while I was touring that Nuclear facility in North Korea. On returning it seemed to be a bit heavier, but I didn't think anything of it. Next, I did have that vacation in Colombia, where I asked the Cali Cartel to look after my bag for a bit. And oh wait, there was that brief jaunt to the ghettos of Detroit where I left my bag on the bus and then found it four hours later. But that nice group of gangbangers assured me that they weren't stowing their contraband and weapons in it. I haven't really checked it since those places, but I'm sure everything is fine.
WestJet Check-in agent: Well that seems reasonable to me. Hmmm, on second thought, maybe I will give it a quick check.
In reality, there is a reason the two questions were first adopted. In 1986, a security guard for the Israeli airline El Al questioned a pregnant Irish woman at London's Heathrow Airport and discovered her Jordanian fiancee had duped her into carrying a bomb onto an Israeli jet.
However, what started as meaningful has become essentially irrelevant. In the United States and Canada, the questions were reduced to two and people (such as Westjet check in people) were never trained to interrogate passengers properly. If the questions were being utilized properly, a trained interrogator would ask some simple queries while looking for reasons to ask further questions, such as shiftiness or conflicting responses. Now you get the desultory way the check in people ask the two questions, as if it were a rote stupid task to get through. Internationally, the security people ask the questions and they do the unnerving stare-into-your-eyes thing when they ask. This makes the person end up feeling guilty even when they don't have a contraband salami.
I'm not advocating interogations, but I am advocating scrapping the two questions if they are going to be used in the manner that they currently are.
posted by Kwazer at 12:52 PM
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