In 2010 America, ignorance and cynicism are the regrettable offspring of fear and arrogance. As we saw today, an American passenger on a Delta flight from Paris to Atlanta decided it would be a good idea to speak out loud about explosives, which did not exist, thus causing US Air Marshall’s to detain the individual at fault. The resulting diversion of the flight to Bangor, Maine was ultimately deemed necessary due to a need to screen the airlines luggage. All 234 passengers, and the 13 crew members aboard, were forced to go back through US Customs and bag screening while the suspect confessed to authorities that he had no explosives and was kidding around. Authorities found him to be truthful, and his background check came up clean. This kind of idiotic, ignorant behavior is a root cause for frustration amongst rational, reasonable, and capable Americans who only seek to reach their destination in a peaceful, non-confrontational manner.
Most people on everyday commercial flights are courteous, kind, purposeful individuals who understand the security concerns that our nation and airlines face, and they have no desire to contribute to these problems. Unfortunately, it only takes one, cynical, ignorant minded individual to make the travel experience in our country more trying than it already is in a post 9/11 era. Still, some people don’t quite get it. Even worse, it is folks who know well that they are breaking the law, but somehow think they are comedians with a license to ruin other people’s days. Every time I travel, I see it. There’s the person who doesn’t understand the need for the TSA, or the person who gets wasted at the bar, and suddenly becomes a tough guy in the security line and on the airplane. These are the same people who cut in line on the way out of the plane because they believe that their urgency to get out of the plane is more important than the stranger next to them.
Unfortunately, when it comes to air travel, we are trapped in a tube 30,000 feet in the air with individuals who may or may not be completely oblivious to common courtesy or travel protocol. I am often shocked to see how ignorant some people are to the tense security environment we face today. It is genuinely upsetting for most people to see grown adults who behave worse than three year old kids when it comes to their actions in airports and airplanes. That being said, it’s well known that traveling by air in 2010 is nothing short of a lottery system. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Today’s news was a prime example of the latter.
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