Why Does *America* Hate *Me*?

. . . and every other airline traveller? When I checked in at Hamburg Airport for my flight back to the USA, they asked me more security questions than they have in the past (the "have you placed a package from anyone else in your luggage?" question has been dropped from US checkin counters only to migrate across the Atlantic), but the whole process was conducted politely, quickly, and in clear and comprehensible English.

When I got off of the plane in Newark, I knew that I was back in the good 'ol USA. Long lines everywhere! Authority figures yelling unintelligible directions at cowering confused travellers!

• How many years of 'temporary' security measures before airports and the TSA take the trouble to install clear signage that tells travellers exactly where to go and what's expected of them? At the security checkpoint, we had the usual guy barking directions at us, upset that we didn't know to take off our shoes before we reached the checkpoint -- but was there a sign telling us what to do beforehand? No, nothing at all until we reached frustrated yelling guy. After waiting for ten minutes in a line labelled "International Recheck", I got the eye-roll from the person behind the counter -- you didn't have to wait in this line -- go over there and wait in that (completely unlabelled) line. I mean, duh.


• Speaking of shoes, how many more years will we have to take our shoes off to go through the security checkpoint before the TSA breaks down and admits that it doesn't do a damned thing? (And what happens if we ever have a shoulder-pad or padded-bra bomber? Or if some terrorist wannabe is caught with an explosives-packed codpiece?)


• And in a peripheral concern, why is it that every passport-control guy feels like he has to be a trailblazer when it comes to stamping your passport? In a shocking development, Hamburg's people actually put my departing stamp on the proper page, in the proper place -- but coming back into the US, the Homeland Security person skipped two pages and put his stamp in the exact middle of the page. I haven't travelled that much, but my passport only has three empty pages left!

. . . I used to love flying; now I hate going to the airport, and grumble about it for days afterwards. Is there anyone out there who believes that this dumping ground for incomprehensible shouting men with Napoleon complexes that is the TSA actually does anything to make us more secure?

At least it was only airport security trying to ruin my day; Continental's employees don't have the screw-you-our-company's-going-bankrupt-and-we're-losing-our-jobs-anyway attitude of passive-aggressive belligerence that United's employees do . . . yet.

[The flight from Hamburg to Newark happened to be the captain's final flight before retirement -- 24 years and 25,000 miles with Continental because of the government's rule for mandatory pilot retirement at age 60. The pilot's last flight, his smiling wife and children sitting at the front of the plane, everybody applauding before takeoff . . . wasn't this the lead-in to pretty much every airplane-disaster movie of the 1970s? Next thing you know, you're in the air, there's suddenly a giant hole in the fuselage, and the flight attendants are asking the screaming passengers if there happens to be a) a doctor and b) a pilot aboard the flight today. But in this case, everything turned out fine. At both ends of the trip, there were fire engines on both sides of the runway, ready to shoot celebratory jets of water over the plane as it passed by.]

Posted by Kevin at August 29, 2005 11:27 PM