What’s Security Without Passengers?

Regarding the decline in air travel, it is not the fear of terrorists that’s keeping me on the ground. It’s the useless extremes the airports have gone to that totally disregard the health and convenience of passengers while providing absolutely no additional security.

How are people who are unable to walk long distances, carry suitcases, stand in lines and wait for hours supposed to manage? What about people with babies or small children, perhaps a mother with three children? Or older people, ill people, people not in a wheelchair who are, nonetheless, physically challenged? Getting on a plane is just too much trouble. Add to all that the danger that some jackass on the plane will misunderstand something a passenger says, and in no time fighter jets are scrambling to shoot the plane out of the sky! We don’t need Osama bin Laden to make us afraid to fly. The airlines have done that nicely.

Rosemary J. Dunham Stoltz

Duarte

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If any major airline were to announce that it was searching each and every bag that it carried, on each and every flight, that airline’s business would triple. Those of us who are afraid to fly again would have renewed faith in air travel.

Connie Adams

Venice

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Re federalizing baggage screeners: The private sector builds incredibly complex airplanes, which are certified by the FAA. The private sector overhauls these planes under FAA guidelines. The locals build major airports under FAA guidelines. Yet we’re led to believe that there is no way that the private sector can check a suitcase?

Require college degrees, pay them $30 per hour, make all the requirements you wish, check them daily, but please, let’s not turn our airports into giant, bloated, lethargic DMV offices.

Norman Kelley

Nuevo, Calif.

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LAX officials are wrong in citing the New York terrorist attacks and the threat of more as the sole reason for the precipitous drop-off in passengers at LAX. While such fears are natural and do, indeed, account for a certain drop-off, I don’t feel I am alone in believing the attacks have heightened our awareness and increased precautionary measures to the point where air travel is now safer than it has ever been. Why, then, should I subject myself to the draconian security measures implemented at LAX when I have other options?

LAX isn’t alone in having to deal with the constant threat of terrorism. However, it is alone in instituting security procedures seemingly intended more to protect itself and its facility than for the protection of passengers. In making flying as difficult as possible, LAX is now learning the first rule of business: Without customers, you don’t exist.

Bruce Hampson

Ventura

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Charles Vanderbilt (letter, Oct. 22) suggests that instead of having armed marshals we could save money by arming volunteer passengers to protect the plane. Really? Has he ever considered the possibility that such a policy could make it much easier for a hijacker to do his work? He wouldn’t even have to find a way to smuggle a weapon on board. All the prospective hijacker would need to do is volunteer and he would be given a weapon after he boards the plane.

Sanford Thier

Los Angeles