[Gratsby]

I have a cheaper alternative. Get rid of TSA altogether. Travelling was a whole heck of a lot more fun in 1975. Since then it's been overreaction upon overreaction. Nobody is going to hijack a plane in this day and age because of the simple fact that the passengers will immediately revolt.

[aurelius12]

It's been all of one week since a plane was hijacked.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/29/europe/hijacked-egypt-air-jet/

[wingless]

According to Wikipedia there have been 6 notable hijackings in the last 5 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_hijackings#20...

There are roughly 100k commercial flights per day, 36m flights per year.

Therefore, the probability of your flight being hijacked is 1 in 30 million, which is an absurdly low number. Note that only one of the 6 hijackings resulted in casualties, so the mortality rate even lower.

[kough]

Most likely due to the TSA's efforts! Can you imagine how many would be hijacked if there weren't a TSA?

[chris_va]

Ah, the good old days...

The history of airport security is somewhat interesting. There wasn't a TSA for long time, and the hijackings/flying to Cuba got annoying, so metal detectors were added.

Everything else since then hasn't made much sense.

[splat]

Interestingly, another approach that was seriously considered was to build a fake "Havana airport" in southern Florida and have the planes land there instead.

http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/skyjacking/

[thaumasiotes]

Yes. Six, possibly even six and a half, flights every five years.

The low rate of hijacking is due to the scarcity of people interested in doing it, not the difficulty. Same reason your house doesn't get burgled every day.

[deelowe]

And none were in the US.

[djsumdog]

..and yet airport security didn't stop this.

[ssalazar]

> [The] EgyptAir flight was taking too long to get from Alexandria to Cairo

Not to interrupt some good-old lazy cynicism, but something tells me there is a substantial difference between domestic Egyptian airport security and the TSA.

[tn13]

TSA is far more idiotic ?

[deelowe]

I imagine that things are a bit different in Egypt (eg cockpit doors arent locked and bullet proof)

[djsumdog]

It's all security theatre. The TSA has stopped a dangerous person NEVER. I've lived around the world and airport security is bad everywhere. Australia's is terrible, German's is pretty bad, but the worst; the absolutely fucking worst is America's. I knew people who would pay more to fly through Canada to avoid American airports.

[bbanyc]

The pre-2001 airport security apparatus did a good job of keeping guns off planes, eliminating the most common hijacking scenario. Almost everything since then has been increased hassle for diminishing returns, with the most effective improvement being one of the least visible - hardening the cockpit doors.

[dwd]

Which introduced a different issue allowing incidents such as the Germanwings and EgyptAir crashes and maybe even Malaysian MH-370.

[kough]

What a new and interesting opinion! I'm sure there are many Hacker News readers who hold the opposite viewpoint /s

[wcummings]

It's a jobs program. IMHO we should put them to work building gaudy monuments of Obama.

[sdenton4]

Don't you mean Bush II? He started the jobs program, after all...