Airport Security
Now I like, it must be said, secure aeroplanes. The thought of being hijacked is an anathema to me, and to that end, I am happy to undergo airport screening.
And it is this very level of screening that always bewilders me, and in particular, I would love it if the airport screeners actually seemed to be singing from the same page.
It must be said that working for CATSA must be the most boring career imaginable; perhaps new recruits believe that they will be the ones to stop another airline massacre, but the odds of spotting anything more dramatic than an errant can of shaving cream or half a bottle of forgotten water are remote. Year after year, the prospect of this future must loom larger, and only those who make it to management or those of a particularly authoritative bent remain. And so turn-over is a problem, and one is confronted all too regularly with those keeners, actually believing that they are doing the world’s security a service.
Petty, futile and unutterably irritating; the wrapping torn – yes I know that I am not supposed to have presents wrapped at security – mine, and eveyone behind me in the queue’s time wasted; two young women on their first week on the job saving Air Canada from disaster and an incandescent Max.
And real progress, like programming these full-body scanners to detonate any explosives they actually detect seems like a distant dream. In the meantime, however, I would urge both the Canadian and particularly American security organisations to figure out how to retain their employees, and help them distinguish between petty harassment and professional security process.
At that point, the travelling public might take the process more genially.