Still, some travelers are bothered by a screening process that has become increasingly time-consuming and intimate, and industry representatives say they are worried that these frustrations are contributing to a decline in air travel.
The Air Transport Association expects 2 percent fewer people will fly this Thanksgiving week compared with last year, while AAA projects a 4 percent increase in automobile travel.
The AAA says more will drive. What about Amtrak?
For me, the airlines themselves killed air travel. It used to be a pleasure to fly, but it has now become a cattle drive in a sardine can. The TSA actions, though I feel are necessary, just put the final nail in the coffin for air travel (for me).
I’d love to try train travel again, but AMTRAK does not go where I want to go without a long commute in some other conveyance to embark, then extremely long routes through places I don’t want to go in order to even get close to “My” destination, and then another long commute in some other conveyance to get where I ultimately want to be.
What I can drive in about 6 hours would require 3 hours of driving and two days of train travel to do on AMTRAK. I think I’d enjoy the train ride, but it just seems counter-productive to travel that way. If it were the train trip as the destination in and of itself, then maybe someday I’ll try AMTRAK.
But it would have to be something better than the trip I took up the east coast several years ago where it was not much different than being on an airplane with the crowded conditions, and a bit worse in that the seating was just a free-for-all mêlée where the ‘regulars’ that knew the situation shoved their way to the window seats and promptly pulled the shades and went to sleep. Us ‘tourists’ were relegated to the aisle seats in a dark car.
Our posts in Passenger has many Amtrak trains sold out. TomorrowpIt appears that short haul trains outbound from east coast major cities (bos, New Haven, NYP, PHL, WASH ). are almost all sold out tomorrow after 0900. Acela trains still have space especiall in first class. NEC Regional trains almost all sold out + empire NYP - Alb, NH - SPG
Midwest trains still have openings as well as west coast. Exception almost all Cascades Talgos sold out except 1st of day.
LD trains on east coast all florida trains wash - ORL crescent cardinal Lake shore. Few more openings on trains to and from CHI but not many
As much as I object to the operations of the TSA as so much security theatre without meaningful effect, Semper has it exactly right about the carriers; and I’m not impressed by the contrary opinion of the industry’s trade group.
It is contrary to everything America stands for to treat everyone like a criminal because you are afraid a criminal MIGHT be somewhere among them.
Has TSA EVER caught a terrorist or prevented an attack?
I can’t speak for anyone else, but TSA is the reason I don’t fly anymore. If they ever start that foolishness at the train station I will stop using Amtrak, too.
Assuming the airlines are driving holiday travelers to try the train, will their holiday experience on the trains make them say never again, or I’ll see you again?
I flew last week and TSA screening was the easiest it has been in a long time. TSA is a distant second to the mass stupid the airlines pull, from charging to check a bag to no meals to charging for seat assignments. I half expect them to put time lock and a meter on the toilets. The only thing they have done right is letting me avoid talking to their employees with self check-in, but I expect them to try what the banks tried and put a fee on self check as well.
I thank my lucky stars that I don’t have to travel this week, and now pick air travel as a last resort to driving or trains.
I have seen some TSA checkpoint agents who make it very clear that they don’t consider passengers to be common criminals. The screening process is a result of the 9/11 gang showing that airliners can be made into very effective weapons of large scale destruction. The screening isn’t all that much different for when I report to jury duty.
As for passenger train security, I would think improvements to grade crossing protection would save more lives than screening passengers.
Getting back to “treat everyone like a criminal”, I can think of some better examples.
I have a rock that keeps tigers away…
Hysterical over reaction is the defining characteristic of Americans today. 9/11 was ten years ago. How long should we hide under our beds?
Its been my experience that a pleasant “Hello…How are you today?” is usually enough to disarm the surliest of TSA officers…and it makes getting through security that much smoother…
Yes, it’s a much more pleasant experience if the government agent smiles pleasantly at you while you are being patted, groped, x-rayed and sending your shoes, luggage, purse, and wallet through the x-ray machine. We have become such sheep.
Some people pay good money for that…
Everybody gets so bent when 911 is referred to. During the “attack”, less than 4000 people died. Certainly this was a devastating incident, and one I hope never happens again.
However, in the 10 years since the attack, there have been, according to the NHTSA, 400,000 people killed in traffic crashes, with 160,000 of them alcohol-related. Smoking kills, according to the C.D.C., killed 4,400,000, with 49,000 of those deaths due to second-hand smoke.
Where is the national outrage about those deaths?
Exactly how many people in the U.S. have been killed by terrorists in the same 10 years?
Maybe the government is spending too much money protecting us from the wrong threats.
There you go again, applying logic where none exists: government (and many would add, railroads)
[edit] added comment to keep post from being totally political in nature.
My 2 cents worth.
Did I hear something about the Dept of Hopeless Security?
Rgds IGN
I fly all the time…Never been groped once.
As for the other things required to pass through security, well that’s the law. And until they change the law I will comply. As a former law enforcement person as you claim you are you should remember what the word COMPLY means.
I do. I also remember what it says in the 4th and 14th Amendments.
Some laws are unconstitutional.
You can opine about all you want.
But that’s for the courts to decide…not Phoebe Vet.
Since you wish to make it a personal attack, I see no point in continuing this conversation. You can tolerate it if you like, I will not.
Over and out…