News and notes from around the interweb:
- What you need to know about when airplane windows fail
- The TSA prepares for summer travel, to the tune of Billy Joel’s For the Longest Time:
- Don’t take your eyes off your belongings at airport security. When TSA makes me wait to go through the metal detector (usually the person manning the line has stopped everyone while they do an extra test on one person), but my belongings have already gone through x-ray, I will announce “my belongings are no longer within my view.” Not always but that often speeds things up, brings someone over to help at the checkpoint.
- 31 years ago — an upside down landing at an airshow.
- Air Astana goes off the runway — and then goes right back on
I get told often by TSA when I announce that my items are out of my view that it doesn’t matter, all activities are taped. I moved to a spot where I could still keep my eyes on my items, and an FSA needed to be called because I was waiting for a pat-down, but they wouldn’t let me step out of “the box”. The FSA had to lecture them, but still tried to lecture me, but I wouldn’t have it.
Thanks for the heads up on TSA. It’s not good enough to say all activities are taped because, what if that day the machine malfunction s? Or the view is blocked? Or the suspect is not clearly visible, or is going international, never to be in the US again?
But the airlines love the choke point provided by TSA. On busy days, they can make you wait for an empty seat and sell yours to a higher paying customer.