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Comment by Silhouette | Hacker News Reader

Is that the part where I have to take off half my clothes for real so they can put the belt and jacket outside the metal detector and the shoes through whatever that other machines does, the bit where they throw away the bottle of soda I was enjoying and make me buy a new one, the bit where someone glares at me over the top of my passport while heavily armed guards look on, the bit where the staff on the way onto the plane mess several passengers around because they don't like their tone and have a "zero tolerance" policy, the bit at the other end where I queue up for ages only to again have someone glare at me over the top of my passport in the presence of armed guards, or something else?

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Really, don't be such a drama queen. Airport security isn't fun, but you're being silly about it.

(And no, by "the bit in the middle", I meant the holiday.)

This is the conversational equivalent of "your feelings on the matter are irrelevant; suck it up, because I don't think it's so bad". Your opinion is duly noted.

For what it's worth, I haven't flown in over a year and a half, and have no intention of doing so until airport security returns to some semblance of sanity. I'm not being a "drama queen" about it; I simply won't pay an exorbitant rate for the privilege of being treated as a criminal because I'd like to board an airplane.

You can call air travel lots of things, but it's not exorbitantly expensive.

NY to LA is $325 by train. It's 175 to 350 flying on Virgin America.

Yea, last time I flew to Glasgow I literally paid more for the taxi to and from the airport than I did for my flight to and from Scotland.

Now, change your destination to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan (Canada). Or even Toronto or Vancouver. The price goes up very quickly, for a trip no longer than any many domestic flights.

(My apologies, I should have specified continental "international" flights, as that's typically all I've ended up flying in the past, with the occasional exceptions for vacations.)

> I'm not being a "drama queen" about it; I simply won't pay an exorbitant rate for the privilege of being treated as a criminal because I'd like to board an airplane.

So, you don't think your second clause there has event a hint of hyperbole?

Not at all. The last few times I've flown (US to Canada and back again), I walked away from the experience feeling abused by the U.S. side of the transaction. You can choose to accept that or not, and can certainly write off my opinion as hyperbole if you'd like; that's your prerogative. But I don't believe I'm the only one who feels that way.

(If the "exorbitant rate" portion is what you object to, see my reply elsewhere in the thread.)

What do you find international flights "exorbitant" with respect to? Cruise ships?

Domestic flights. I'm flying to Canada, our land-based neighbor, not Australia.

The additional cost is purely because of bureaucracy, not the least of which is our security theatrics.

Do you have any evidence that airport security costs are responsible for the higher prices?

In the past year alone, several of my friends have been literally strip searched (not just the virtual one) for no apparent reason. Sure, some people don't care about being seen naked, but a lot of people do and this is a deeply embarrassing and unpleasant experience that will stay with them for a long time.

Members of my family have been left stranded in a foreign country when an airline refused to carry them because one of them asked why he was required to show the same documents for the third time in rapid succession. (The airline's excuse for this absurdly disproportionate response changed so many times afterwards it was hard to keep track, and I won't say any more because as far as I'm aware legal action for compensation is still pending.)

Hundreds of people from my country have recently been held in hotels under armed guard because after a diversion to a different country's airport due to the ash problems, they obviously didn't have visas, so they couldn't even get a train home. I'm not sure why anyone in a country these people never wanted or expected to visit would consider them such a security threat that they couldn't leave and had to be held at gunpoint, but there you go.

These things are not trivial, and I don't think a single one of those people would consider objecting to this sort of security theatre "being silly".

And you fail on the "bit in the middle", because all the unpleasantness that I described in those earlier posts happens on a single flight.

>And you fail on the "bit in the middle", because all the unpleasantness that I described in those earlier posts happens on a single flight.

You were talking about the start and the end of the journey in your OP. I assumed the "end" part referred to the return flight. Hence the holiday would be "the bit in the middle".

I'm know that people have bad experiences sometimes, but you're making an absurdly huge drama out of it. Refusing to fly is simply not a reasonable response to the typical level of inconvenience.

>Hundreds of people from my country have recently been held in hotels under armed guard

This has nothing to do with airport security, but rather immigration policy. You're going off on so many tangents here I'm not really sure what to say.

> I'm know that people have bad experiences sometimes, but you're making an absurdly huge drama out of it.

The point is that almost everyone I know seems to be having a bad experience with flying these days, and almost all of it is directly due to the over-zealous security and related issues. Why should we "come quietly" and accept our quality of life being reduced in this way?

> Refusing to fly is simply not a reasonable response to the typical level of inconvenience.

I, and an increasing number of my friends and family, disagree with you. Fortunately, where and how we travel still remains our choice, so those modes of transport and destinations that offer a pleasant, efficient experience will benefit, while those that do not will suffer.

The point is that almost everyone I know seems to be having a bad experience with flying these days

Just as a counterpoint, almost everyone I know is minorly inconvenienced and continues on their merry way way when flying. Mainly grumbling about having to repack their carry-on and security theater jokes. And these are people flying into/out of major airports (SFO, LAX, JFK, ORD to name a few).

// edit: Include me in this as well. And I've flown into or out of ROC, JFK and SFO ~8-10x a year (4-5 trips a year) for the past 3 years.

Of course, this just illustrates anecdotes and that people view things differently. Shocking, I know.

Hundreds of people from my country

Out of curiosity, just what country are you from? Or your family? You haven't said. At least, not that I've noticed.

He mentioned living in the UK a few posts back.

You don't necessarily have to have citizenship of a country to live there. Nor do you have to live in the same country that the rest of your family lives in.

I'm just wondering how much (if any) of his/friends/families experience is due to something unfortunate (such as racial profiling) vs how much (again, if any) is simply being blown out of proportion.

I'm a British citizen and living in the UK.

I've met many people through the university in the city where I live, so they come from a diverse range of backgrounds. I have noticed no common racial or nationality elements in those who have mentioned having a worse time with airport security.

In the US, at least, airport security and immigration policy are both motivated by the same fears, and a large part of airport security is enforcing immigration policy.

The OP was talking about an exceptional case in which a number of people had to enter a country without visas. Not surprisingly, they weren't allowed to wonder around at their leisure. That has nothing to do with airport security -- they were not being held in the airport.

I didn't perceive that as the center of the argument, but perhaps I misinterpreted. I read it as saying that international airline travel in general is too invasive and inconvenient, with the ash-induced diversion just a worst-case example.

At any rate, my only point was that there is a connection between the motivations for border/immigration security and airport security. Addressing the deeper motivations behind the problems with both should make both improve.

> I didn't perceive that as the center of the argument,

Neither did I -- that's why I said it was a tangent.

Actually, there have been people who were held airside for an extended period, and weren't even allowed access to their baggage to get a change of clothes.

And we're not talking about wandering around at their leisure, we're talking about not even being allowed to get a train home. It's not as if someone is a serious risk of becoming an illegal immigrant, if they had no intention of being in the country in the first place. But there seems to be no concept of applying common sense and issuing emergency visas despite the unusual circumstances.

the bit where someone glares at me over the top of my passport while heavily armed guards look on

The experience of the Israeli authorities, is that doing this works. You have to do this 7 times to get through the airport in Israel. They can also do it quickly and efficiently.

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