Holy freaking crap. As of Friday, every piece of luggage on every plane in America will have to be screened for explosives. However, there is virtually no infrastructure in place to do the screening. Be prepared for fantastic-bordering-on-comical delays. I'm flying SF-Toronto on Thursday, and the back other way on Tuesday. I'll let you know how it goes. Urp.
In a meeting with the Chicago Sun-Times editorial board last week, American Airlines Chairman and CEO Donald Carty said the airline is "trying to cobble together a series of things without bringing down the system" but declined to give away details. Carty said on the first couple of days "as many as 5 percent" of flights might be slightly delayed. "We may run into trouble if it is a bad weather day. You could have a rough time."
Each of the screening options has drawbacks.
The explosive detection machines, which use a combination of X-ray and CAT-scan technology, have an up to 20 percent false alarm rate. They're also expensive–costing about $1 million apiece–and there are only 160 of them nationwide.
Manual inspections are slow and open to human error.
Matching bags to passengers won't deter suicide bombers.
Bomb-sniffing dogs, while highly accurate, can't work for long periods without a break. And there are only about 175 FAA-certified dogs nationwide.
