The ‘Air Safety Is No. 2’ City

Our expectations of commercial airline security have changed once again. This time the cause was a man who was wrestled into submission aboard a Paris-to-Miami flight Saturday after allegedly trying to light a shoe packed with explosives. Already heightened security just got tighter.

Travelers returning home from the holidays can expect long lines, limits on carry-on bags--and shoe searches. Given the circumstances, it’s hard to protest against shucking your sneakers, but passengers can and will complain about how airports execute yet another time-consuming task.

At Los Angeles International Airport, poorly designed terminals have already turned many security checkpoints into choke points. At least Los Angeles Mayor James K. Hahn has in mind, if not yet on paper, a plan to remodel the airport to accommodate new security requirements. And so far no one, not even die-hard airport critics who fought an earlier airport expansion plan to a standstill, has dared speak out against improving security.

The same, incredibly, cannot be said for the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport. Long known for blocking efforts of the tri-city Airport Authority to replace its cramped passenger terminal, the Burbank City Council last week denied a request by Southwest Airlines to move a wall in the old terminal to make room for increased, federally required baggage searches.

The council members who denied the request in a 3-2 vote said they did so because of a measure passed by Burbank voters in October that bars the city from approving construction or financing of “any new, rebuilt, relocated or expanded airport facility, under any conditions or due to any circumstances” unless conditions such as a flight curfew and a cap on the number of flights are met.

Besides being a boneheaded way to run an airport, the measure sidesteps federal laws governing air travel, making its enforcement legally questionable. What’s more, the backer of the initiative approved in October, a group called Restore Our Airport Rights, said it wouldn’t object to Southwest’s request.

Burbank officials are far more used to appeasing than leading. Flight attendants and passengers on board the Paris-to-Miami flight had the guts to stand up to a 6-foot-4 man, grappling with him and eventually keeping him bound with belts until their plane landed safely in Boston. Burbank leaders don’t even have the nerve to stand up to real or imagined irate voters to make a case for stopping terrorism.