Southwest Airlines "stole" electronics from crash-landed plane

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The real problem is that the handlers, like the TSA, are given power without any checks on it, the rationale being that it’s necessary somehow to keep everyone safe. See also: the recent thread about cops beating up and arresting kids for trivial offenses.

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The laptop etc was in his carry-on - not in his checked luggage. The carry-ons have to stay behind in an emergency evacuation.

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Seems like a genuinely unfixable problem. Assuming a fixed percentage of any workforce is always going to be willing to cheat or steal, for an establishment as large as an airport it will always be a major problem. Even if you disregard the security theater angle for a moment, the task of keeping a workforce honest is enormous.

The only solutions that could realistically fix it are the same ones that have generated gigabytes worth of complaints on this website: invasive searches, legions of cameras, and restrictions of liberty.

I fly Southwest regularly…and I for one am quite happy that they have very little experience implementing post-disaster procedures and don’t know what they’re doing. An airline whose post-crash procedure is a well oiled machine is an airline I will avoid.

Shana, they bought their tickets. They knew what they were getting into. I say let 'em lose their luggage.

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I dunno, UPS deals with more packages every day than any airline, and while they do experience some loss, it seems like it’s a lot less than the airlines.

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i get it, but I’d rather crash with British Airways than with Southwest. They have rigorous and complete training.

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For checked baggage, it would help enormously if people could actually seal their luggage. In many other countries there are luggage shrink-wrapping services in the airports that serve the dual purpose of making theft much more difficult and keeping bags from getting wet/stained. But even allowing us to use luggage locks that didn’t have widely circulated master keys would be an improvement.

That wouldn’t help with carryons that are left behind in an emergency evacuation, though.

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If you pay peanuts…

…you employ elephants

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Would they allow that when for “security reasons” some three letter agency has to be able to get into it at all times? Isn’t that why you have to use TSA approved luggage locks?

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