I mean no disrespect, but this is probably the strangest and worst take that I’ve seen from any semi-serious aviation industry executive…
Continue reading: Huh: Boom CEO Proposes Abolishing Airport Security, “It Will All Be Ok”
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No doubt he flies private, so the safety & security of common folk is of little concern.
"... explain to my nearly three-year-old why he needs to wear pants when we leave the house."
This has to be the best line of the day! Good question to ask his parents, too!
This feels like one of those tech CEOs who see regulations as only pesky things that should go away rather than items that are often written in the blood of those who lost their lives or limbs when the regulation wasn't in place. The difference is that we aren't talking about an app, we are talking about airplane safety.
While not directly impacting his planes, his thoughts on safety regulations here make me a little nervous about how willing he may be to brush aside regulations when building his aircraft.
So a few things here:
1. Until supersonic travel can be as cost effective as present commercial air travel it's going nowhere. Plane speeds have not changed since jets were introduced in the 50s/early 60s and the Concord never made commercial success
2. Presumably biometrics and AI could be used to do screening not mall cops. Also, the better use of No Fly Lists so that people that should not be on planes can't even book a ticket. But there's a lot of potential issues there, including getting on the list if you have the same name
3. None of this solves the biggest threat that has grown after 9/11. Mentally unbalanced individuals, excessive alcohol, abuse of drugs, almost always a combination. If the police have to be called and if they have to arrest/trespass that individual should be placed on a total No Fly List. We don't need drunken, strung out adult toddlers getting on airplanes.
He's right. No real difference with bus and train. What if someone brings a bomb aboard a bus or train? Why don't we have security there? We should! Or you don't care about safety?
"reasonable people can’t disagree on whether we should have airport security at all."
Yet until September 11, 2001, quite a few reasonable minds disagreed with you about this.
"A reinforced cockpit door doesn’t help if someone brings a bomb onboard an aircraft"
Neither does the ability of a bus "to just pull over" once the bomb has been detonated.
Look, I'm not neccessarily saying the best approach is to just get rid of security, but to act like its such an absurd take or that we should not at least move in that direction somewhat is very narrow minded.
Relaxing security at airports it will be a matter of time before something bad happens.
Why screen manifests at all then?
If you don't have security, you don't know who's boarding. Anyone can book a ticket under any name, right?
On the former watchlist, fine, I'm John Doe today.
He's right. TSA misses stuff and is largely theatre. Countless other forms of transportation and public places are fine without forcing such theatre.
@ oleg -- To clarify, are you saying that planes would be safe if we didn't screen passengers, or just that a few planes being blown up every now and then isn't a big deal if it makes our lives more convenient?
For example, we also see school shootings every so often, and as a country, we seem fine with that, to the point that we do little to stop them.
I don't think many people have realised that we are living in a dystopia where extremely rich and powerful people, with god complexes and deranged ideas about how the world should be, run our societies.
The American government- from one idiotic comment to another. At least they are all consistently stupid. As an aside, I’ve just watched some republican moron thinking quoting Goebbels was appropriate.
People walking onto aircraft with knives and guns. Airlines are targeted more so than other forms of transport
The USA can get rid of it and the rest of the world can suspend all flights there.
@ ML -- "Yet until September 11, 2001, quite a few reasonable minds disagreed with you about this."
That was 25 years ago, and the world has changed. Until some point in history, people also disagreed about whether slavery was moral or not.
"Neither does the ability of a bus 'to just pull over' once the bomb has been detonated."
The reality is that in terms of the global impact, a plane blowing up is much more significant than a bus blowing up. Both are of course terrible tragedies, but if a bus blows up, people would be sad, but not much would change. If a plane would blown up, it could completely change the airline industry, and massively reduce demand for travel.
@ echino -- We often do have security for trains (for example, I often take the Brightline in South Florida, and it has security). But I'm not sure a shortcoming in security in one plane is a reason to abolish a security measure in another place?
For domestic flights over the continental US, it would be ok if there was the will for immediate diversion. Someone waives a pistol, immediate diversion. But for practical purposes, some screening to screen for guns like is done now is a good idea.
I do not think there is much effective screening for bombs. Some screening but not that good.
You're right that TSA is mostly security theater. That doesn't equate to throwing away security but do it better. Much of the technology that can do it better than low paid mall cops wasn't around in 2001. The fact that in the year 2025 we have a $20 an hour person staring at a crappy computer screen image is mindboggling.
No TSA equivalent for domestic flights in New Zealand. It works for them, why not the US? SFO uses private security and they are just as bad as the TSA.
@ ted poco -- Without even addressing the difference in gun ownership and crime between the US and New Zealand, note that only planes with fewer than 90 seats aren't security screened on domestic flights in New Zealand. That's very different than what's being proposed here.
Sometimes, people feel compelled to live up to their name: (e.g., Madoff).
This chap leads a company called Boom, and that is exactly what the end of airport security screening would lead to.
"lane speeds have not changed since jets were introduced in the 50s/early 60s"
Incorrect. They have changed, they've gone DOWN.
The C990, B747, and L1011 were all significantly faster than today's B787 and A350, and the A340 and B777 before them.
@ML
A typical bus carries 60-80 people at the upper end, not the 130-400 of a loaded plane, and if a bomb is detonated aboard a bus there's much lower risk of the bus itself causing additional casualties. Unlike debris from a plane falling from thousands of feet up over a city. Similarly for a train, a bomb going off both doesn't mean the guaranteed death of everyone on the train as it would for an aircraft, and the train is also less likely to injure bystanders or damage property beyond its right-of-way.
At the end of the day, it comes down to risk vs convenience. Aircraft are inherently more at risk of killing all onboard and injuring bystanders if there's a mechanical failure or a violent act by a passenger. Aircraft also already take a long time to load/unload, so security checks prior to boarding are far less onerous in terms of additional time needed to fly. Buses and trains load and unload very quickly, and especially in terms of mass transit adding airport-style security checks would make them far less convenient to use, and given that buses and trains have inherently less associated risk there's no rationale to implement such checks.
Heck, as an example, if you tried to screen passengers getting on the subway in NYC the entire city would grind to a halt. For comparison, on a peak travel day security at ATL airport screened about 116k passengers. The NYC subway has a daily ridership around 3.6 MILLION. There's no technology on earth that can screen that many people to the level airports do without significantly slowing down operations.
Simple, no need for security if you do three things.
1. Everyone flies naked. (nothing to hide)
2. No carry ons.
3. No checked bags.
"Immediate diversion" from 30k feet still takes a little while. "Immediate diversion" from a highway takes several seconds to pull over.
@echino because a bus or train can stop pretty quickly and people can get off. If something happens a bus or train is not crashing down from 30k feet, guaranteeing that everyone onboard will die. If something happens, busses are on major roads and many (most?) train lines run at least near roads, easing access by emergency services. A bus or train isn't going to take out a building. Need I go on about the differences between if an emergency, or even accident, happens on a bus or train versus an airplane?
What a truly spectacular idiot. This guy must think that tariffs really are great.
Have you heard of "keestering"? Not to worry, the Anal Logic airport probe decide that's pictured in the article will be put to good use extracting contraband.
Anyone who agrees with this should read "The Skies Belong To Us" and then think again (or rather actually think for the first time).
I agree with Oleg, and seemingly so did a lot of countries make a similar determination about how to treat the Covid pandemic. Some countries overreacted ( my own country Australia) and invoked harsh lock down policies to try to protect everybody at no thought to the long term damage, while other countries let it rip on the premise that there will be deaths, but that is ok in comparison to harsher restrictions for all. This is analogous to long lines at security, being policed by unpleasant and inefficient security staff to try to prevent any flight danger, but everyday reports of failures in the security are broadcast around the world. What has really been learnt in the 20+ years since these policies were first enacted? When still a tube of toothpaste or deodorant is confiscated as a deadly weapon???
Scrap the domestic passenger manifest screening by the government —- it’s hokey pokey pre-crime witchcraft — but we need to screen for weapons/explosives/incendiaries.
I prefer we go through the path of reducing the level of procedures and restrictions. Requirements like restricting liquids, taking off shoes, removing large electrical items are unnecessary today (though they made sense in the 2000s when the threat of terrorism towards air travel was still high). If you streamline the experience without compromising security, that will accomplish the task of cutting burdensome regulations.
It irks me so much that even before the current admin TSA was estimating it'd be 2040 when they finally got all the new scanners online to allow larger liquids to be carried on. Something that would massively improve passenger experience, and they're taking 15 years to do it. Italy built a 12 mile subway line with dozens of archeological digs on the side in less time.
Ben, how can the CEO of a company called BOOM understand any argument about the bomb risk ? Even only alluding to sonic boom, one would expect the company to be called LOBOOM or NOBOOM. That company's name is ridiculous.
Maybe there aren't as many crazy people in New Zealand as here? Or maybe they don't have endless wars and try to piss off everyone in the world?
Ceos are not accountable for anything. If things go wrong the'll just get $100 million to leave the company, blame it on another ceo or just say oops someone on my team didn't give me all the info so not my fault.
And in NYC, there are tens of thousands of cops patrolling the subway system. There's no one on an airplane in the air, unless you start arming the pilots and flight attendants. I am sure everyone is looking forward to a gun fight on your future flight.
Basically the people running this shlt show now don't care about anything as long as they can make an extra buck. What do they care about airport security? They can fly private.
Oh yeah. You are so right! How come no one thought of that over the last 100 years of air travel? Genius! You are as smart as Donald!
Boeing, when it was still a fine company, did research before planning the 787. They offered the industry a choice of a more efficient jet with better economics OR a jet with the potential to fly faster though still subsonic. The industry clearly indicated a preference for better costs vs speed.
I have traveled many times in Australia without any internal security. TSA is a waste with no positive outcome at all, and for the most part security screening is stupid in the US.
This is essentially what both Australia and New Zealand have done on all domestic flights.
If you screen everyone adequately for weapons/.explosives, then there should be no need to start running background checks or other largely pointless surveillance.
I live in Australia and travel weekly domestically out of Sydney. We have security checks at every port. Where exactly did you fly out of?
There is no statistical relationship between gun ownership and crime rates. See Switzerland and North Dakota for examples of societies with high gun ownership and low crime.
How is the 90 seat restriction relevant? There have still been no incidents on planes with <= 89 seats, correct? That's not statistical noise, it's thousands of flights.
I don't support the elimination of airport security. It doesn't make sense to me. I do support and huge change in TSA checkpoints and procedures.
For example, the liquid's rule has always been absurd because any dedicated small group of terrorists could easily get around it and bring aboard significant quantities of explosives working together. Moreover ghost guns are a current problem. They can't be picked up by the metal detectors at their current TSA settings, to the best of my knowledge, despite TSA insistence that they can pick them up and they are exceedingly hard to pick up with most current carry-on scanners.
TSA needs to immediately outfit all their checkpoints with the new CT scanners with updated AI and needs to dump the metal detectors and needs to accelerate their new AIT full body scanner finalization with advanced AI that can see ghost guns, see everything on the body with far better definition, cut the scan time in half and eliminate the need to remove one's shoes and belts.
Because NZ is a safe country with mentally stable people. They can have nice things.
Ben, I don't side with executives, ever, BUT: at some point scanning tech should get good enough that, the sacrifice passengers make in privacy, anxiety and convenience should give us an easier scanning process in return.
There should be longer corridors where people mainly walk through freely, and are only flagged down if they're detected as carrying something you're worried about.
Americans like to go to extremes when they argue things as a way of making their points, but it's true that should the current TSA process should go, especially considering how silly all this is. By the way Ben, did you hear about Thailand bringing back and strengthening the 100ml liquid rule? That's just BS.
Oops got a little linguistic error there in the last paragraph. What I meant is, by definition security checks have to be at least partially theater, because safety does not really depend on these checks. 9/11 proved you can't actually ban everything that can be used as weapon - flight attendants need their pens, and the liquid rules and shoe checks... if your family or friend acts like that we'd call them paranoid bullies.
Real security depends on the will power of the collective to want to go home to their loved ones. That's the truth. You can never take enough measures to prevent fiasco because that's not how the world works. So real-world security checks have their limits and going beyond a certain limit is always counter-productive. I don't trust execs, but I think that's what this Blake person actually mean to say.
As a European and talking about the European context, I would gladly board any flight which wouldn't be subject to the current security checks (and I actually did in the past since very few places still run without them) and I'd actually book that over flights with a security theatre if I had a choice. I don't think the security screenings at airports do much to increase my safety, it's notoriously leaky anyway. All planned attacks on planes were stopped by the means of intelligence, not brute force.
It's not gonna happen, but if it did, it would have my full support.
Typical tech bro douchebag. These worthless maggots will get what’s coming to them.
Much the same for a bunch of my domestic and cross-border intra-Schengen flights.
Weapons/explosives/incendiary screening is a job that needs no passenger ID-checking circuses and is best done without counterproductive “guess the terrorist” by identity games.
On my most frequent cross-border intra-Schengen flight, I can fly back and forth as Love Cohen, Mickey Moussa, Pat Smith or whatever. Neither the governments, nor airport security nor the airlines would impede me in doing so.
Samo, how exactly do you know what planned attacks have been stopped.
If you think they have all been announced then you're an idiot
However I do know that some decent sized arenas here in the UK have replaced alot if not all of their traditional security with new camera systems that have proved to be extremely effective at detecting unauthorised materials.
I think there's merit to what he says. No, I'm not crazy, just hear me out on this.
First, and most obviously, you've written about JSX (JetSuiteX) before. Do you think they should be banned? They essentially use a loophole in FAA regulations to do exactly this. I've flown on them before. The convenience was awesome and I'd gladly fly them again even with no security screenings or really any checks of any kind (even baggage didn't get screened, compared to what this guy is recommending).
Second, by keeping reinforced cockpit doors (and I would add requiring explosion-proof cargo compartments), you are essentially limiting any damage to the people on the plane alone, and that too would be significantly limited by what a person can bring into the cabin. IOW, there can be no 9/11 where people can commandeer a plane and use it as a makeshift weapon or bomb. At most, they can kill the passengers inside which is putting 200-400 lives at risk.
That may sound like a lot, but I think you're falling into a fallacy of not comparing risks properly. Yes, an airplane can't be stopped because it's in the air. But a train can do a lot of damage precisely because it's on the ground. If someone brings a bomb onto one of the numerous rail lines that run under Penn Station in NY, they could potentially cause deaths in the hundreds of thousands, not to mention disabling the central area of one of the most critical cities in the world. Similarly, imagine a bus blowing up in the Port Authority in midtown manhattan, or maybe timed to go off in the Lincoln Tunnel, something that would cause billions of dollars in damage and economic harm not to mention the loss of life in hundreds of cars. An airplane blowing up in the sky has far less potential for damage (barring its use as a weapon to attack ground-based targets, which the reinforced cockpit doors should prevent) than a train. From a risk/reward ratio, there are very little assets and/or humans in the sky compared to on the ground. So why do we panic so much more about security for flights compared to trains or buses?
Just like worrying about flights crashing while getting into your car every day is a misunderstanding of risk, I think hyperventilating about possible guns on an airplane while walking into any mall or restaurant every day is also misunderstanding risks.
Third, you mention the culture of safety in aviation. But you misunderstand it. That culture is about *accidents* i.e. non-intentional harm. That means reducing manufacturing defects, opportunities for pilot error, ATC rules to keep planes from bumping into each other, etc. A safety culture that addresses reducing errors (or harm from errors) is very, very, very different than an effort to reduce *intentional* harm. The former is all about human factors psychology, science, engineering, etc. The latter is all about law enforcement, criminal profiling, judicial penalties, etc. Very different subjects.
At the end of the day, I'm not necessarily ready to throw out *all* screening. But it's clear that TSA is not keeping us safe (just because there have been no hijackings since TSA was started is another logical fallacy). And rather than just tinker on the edges (like increasing the amount of allowed liquids), I think starting fresh is a good idea. Now, whether the current administration and his officials are the right type to have a somber, rational analysis of airport security is another matter...
I addressed the risk to trains/busses in another post. To put succinctly, you are drastically overestimating the casualties for a train/bus bomb. Even a bomb on the scale of the Oklahoma Federal building attack would not cause 100k deaths if detonated in Penn Station, that's ludicrous and two orders of magnitude off even if such an attack could be carried out successfully.
Specifically for bombs, it's basically impossible for a person to assemble a bomb that is both small enough to carry for one or a few people, and destructive enough to cause the kind of damage you're imagining. Multi-ton fertilizer bombs would be easier to put together, but you physically couldn't bring one with you on a train or bus.
Now if we could only get rid of the pilots and air traffic controllers then we'd be on to something.
I think y'all have forgot something called bomb sniffing dogs or explosive sniffing dogs. I watched Dog Squad and one about dogs in Britain and they are VERY good (if trained right) better then any human or machine could ever do. If airports got rid of security but the risk of random patrol dogs that would put a damper to any would be terrorists plan as they could at any time be found out.
Though the BEST airport security is long before you actually REACH the airport at all.
The real airport security should be screening people long BEFORE they even make it to the airport. By the time you make it it's game over. If you wanted to you could cause chaos just by blowing up the airport itself which would severely effect the airline industry worse then a plane or two being blown up.
Two medium sized airports being blown up would have major fallout across the airline industry even if very few lives are actually lost or nobody's lives are lost.