Huh? Time to pay closer attention to flying security

While top airline industry designers convened in Germany this week to float ideas for making the flying experience more imaginative and downright warm and fuzzy, here’s what was happening on the ground and off.

Taken from the pages of the past week’s Albuquerque Journal, reality ranged from several hundred airport perimeter breaches to TSA same-sex groping to a baggage handler who fell asleep in the hold of an airplane. These incidents go beyond the routine unpleasant flying experience — shrinking leg room, late departures and arrivals, and seat preference and bag fees, sometimes even for carry-ons — to raise serious concerns about security and safety.

An Associated Press investigation found that since 2004 there were at least 268 perimeter breaches at airports that together handle three-quarters of U.S. commercial passenger traffic. None of the intrusions involved a terrorist plot. Most involved people who were lost, drunk or looking for a shortcut. But some did manage to board a jet, such as the 15-year-old boy who crawled into a jet’s wheel well at the Mineta San Jose International Airport last April and survived an almost six-hour flight to Hawaii. In Denver, two TSA agents, a male and a female, were fired for allegedly conspiring to single out attractive male passengers for the male agent to pat down. And in Seattle, a plane had to return to the airport to offload the panicked handler who had awakened to find himself locked in the hold and airborne. Thomas Anthony, an aviation security expert and a former FAA official, called the incident a “Huh?” moment because the crew supervisor had said, “‘Huh, I wonder where Louie is?’ ”

These incidents should be viewed as red-flag moments the industry should pay attention to, if the skies are to be as safe as possible.