No problem with your comments, including the FAA upcharge on common parts. Same exists by the way between freight locomotives and amtrak passenger locomotives— gotta talk to a Westinghouse or GE electromotive division about that— so that in turn increases costs of that “different” motor. Understand your General Aviation comments. Key and central to this whole discussion is that no matter what stripe, gubmint is and has been the problem. TSA became a govt’ union cow for the Democrats who took advantage of the country’s need (where is Reagan and the ATC strike, say if TSA decides to hold the country hostage for a buck). I have a problem with using El Al as an example. You could not do what they do in say, Chicago. The country of Israel is the size of Dade County in FL and the number of El Al flights in and out not even comparable to Miami’s daily number. I would agree that the problem becomes simpler if you simply profile muslims (and the caucasian muslims too, like from Kosovo)— make the filters work and human markers. Like all politics there are still “ticks” to stop progress. So we are much in agreement. Standing in the way of good progress is someone protecting someone else’s fiefdom.
The point of using El Al as an example is that the airlines, not the gubmint should be charged with security of their aircraft and who is allowed to fly with them. The airlines own the planes. The airlines are responsible for the passengers and crew. The airlines are responsible for the security on the aircraft, particularly the pilot in command, once it pushes back from the gate, despite the fact that the gubmint has done many things to make their job harder. The airlines are the ones with the dog in the security issue fight, not the gubmint. If another 9/11 happens the airlines have everything to lose and nothing to gain. If another 9/11 happens the gubmint will appoint a "blue ribbon commission" and politicians will preen for the cameras so that they have good footage of them acting tough come election time, but nothing of real consequence will get done to remedy the situation and make commercial air travel safer, all at great expense to the taxpayers. The Israelis do it right.