Posted on 12/31/2009 9:57:01 AM PST by reaganaut1
Stress Security, Not Convenience
The safest airline in the world, it is widely agreed, is El Al, Israel’s national carrier. The safest airport is Ben Gurion International, in Tel Aviv. No El Al plane has been attacked by terrorists in more than three decades, and no flight leaving Ben Gurion has ever been hijacked. What are the Israelis doing that we aren’t?
Airports in the United States and many other countries are built around convenience while in Israel it’s all about security. We get our boarding passes online and check our baggage at the curb.
At T.S.A. checkpoints, youths stare at screens, doing the best they can to not look at nor talk to us.
Contrast this with an Israeli airport where you stay with your bags until your security check is complete, and airline and highly trained security personnel talk to you and watch you constantly. You’re not allowed to approach the ticket counter until you are cleared by the security system, while in the United States, security is an apparent afterthought.
Israeli airport security, much of it invisible to the untrained eye, begins before passengers even enter the terminal. Officials are constantly monitoring passengers’ behavior, alert to clues that may hint at danger.
Profilers make a point of interviewing travelers, sometimes at length, and oftentimes asking questions that don’t seem to make any sense at all — and that’s the idea. The point of the long questioning is to find inconsistencies in a terrorist’s cover story, or to agitate him into a panic. If you are lying or distracted by something, the profilers will soon figure that out, and you will be marked as a possible threat and action will be taken.
(Excerpt) Read more at roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com ...
To put it mildly, we could not emulate the El Al approach with the current TSA staff. I'm not sure our CIA staff would be up to it.
El Al type security measures would bankrupt the US Airline industry. El Al is a money loser propped up by Israel as a big middle finger to the Muzzie terrorists.
Naw, TSA would not be up for it. Well, a few in the upper echelons of the organization, but not the serfs. We flew El Al from London to Jerusalem. We got there late and were interrogated, but as we were traveling with our son and Americans, I am sure we did not fit the profile.
They had taken out the bulkheads that delineate the cabins, so there was clear view of all areas. My husband noticed a ‘guy with a big neck’ who got off last; we spoke with him briefly. I am sure he was an air marshall of some sort.
On our flight out of Jerusalem, we were pulled out of the line and whisked through security in nothing flat.
I loved flying El Al. There is tons of chaos in the Middle East, and the threat is high, but their system worked. They were efficient, quick, polite, but thorough and no-nonsense. Common sense does not cost a lot, and using it eliminates all the razzmatazz of Political Correctness.
Also, citizens carry guns there, everywhere. There were soldiers on leave with (machine?) guns everywhere. (I’m a musician, don’t know guns, except that they were not Glocks). We felt very safe because the Good Guys were on Code Orange, as were we.
***El Al is a money loser propped up by Israel as a big middle finger to the Muzzie terrorists***
Now that’s the kind of “tax” I would be willing to pay.
I don't know the answer but I don't think body scanning is it.
I wanna be stripped searched by Israeli Sabras
and once TSA is unionized...damn sure we’ll get even longer lines and waits and less security.
If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
..................
I DON’T KNOW HOW REPRESENTATIVE THIS QUARTER (2009/3RD) IS FOR EL AL, BUT IT DOES SHOW A PROFIT.
Thomson Reuters
El Al Israel Airlines Q3 profit
11.26.09, 11:20 AM EST
pic
JERUSALEM, Nov 26 (Reuters) - Flag carrier El Al Israel Airlines reported a fall in quarterly profit on Thursday, as lower fares and a moribund cargo market knocked almost a fifth off its revenues.
El Al posted third-quarter net profit of $12.3 million, compared with profit of $31 million a year earlier.
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‘In a quarter where the ongoing financial crisis continued to affect world airlines and to cause huge losses, El Al managed to show a profit,’ Haim Romano, El Al’s president, said in a statement.
Revenues slid 18 percent to $496.1 million on the heels of a 20 percent fall in passenger ticket prices and as the cargo market ‘collapsed’ in and out of Israel, the airline said.
It noted that its load factor increased 6 percentage points to 85 percent in spite of higher capacity from foreign carriers. El Al said its market share at Ben-Gurion International Airport rose to 35 percent from 33 percent a year ago.
Jet fuel expenses fell 37 percent to $136 million.
El Al is one the safest airlines on the planet,I rather pay for that then molesting 3 year olds
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1330569/Airport-security-staff-caught-camera-body-searching-crying-3-year-old-girl.html
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