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Feel Safer at the Airport, Just in Time for the Holidays

By Matt Wood in Miscellaneous on Nov 17, 2006 2:31PM

All that super security at the airport is supposed to make us feel safer, right? We mean, you didn't throw out your bottles of hot sauce and whiskey for nothing. It may be a hassle, but knowing that trained professionals are scouring every inch of every plane and passenger with bomb-sniffing dogs and high-tech detection equipment is worth the extra time in the security line, assuming of course, that said highly-trained professionals are actually doing those kinds of things.

chicagoist_200611_united.jpgCBS 2's Dave Savini is reporting that one flight attendant was threatened with termination if she didn't board passengers on a plane that she didn't feel was safe. The flight had received a bomb threat and was checked for explosives, though not by police or a bomb squad, but by the cleaning crew. The story is sketchy on details about when and where this happened, presumably because of safety reasons, but it was a United Airlines flight, and Savini interviewed the flight attendant on a Chicago street, so we'll assume that it happened at an airport whose name rhymes with "mohair."

The flight's captain filed a report on the matter, calling it a "safety issue" and "despicable." United denied that anyone was threatened with losing their jobs, of course. Now we realize that if airlines checked out every single crank call about bomb threats, no flight would ever leave the ground. But we also don't feel comfortable knowing that an overworked bunch of janitors is the last line of defense either. CBS 2 later found out that the crack cleaning crew/bomb inspectors receive one day of safety training and are allowed to enter the airport through a back gate without being screened themselves. They do, however, receive some pretty tasty incentives for risking their lives in this expanded capacity: Jewel gift cards for finding dangerous items on planes. Here's a bag of day-old donuts from the bakery kids, Mommy found a bomb today!