The Jetpacker

On Christmas Day, we enjoyed a hassle-free 1-hour flight from Frankfurt to Berlin.  Right about the time we were landing, 400 miles away in Amsterdam, an Islamic extremist was boarding a plane bound for Detroit with the intent to blow it up.

By now, you’ve certainly heard about the attempted terror attack on Northwest Flight 253 by a guy with suspected terrorist ties carrying no luggage on a cross-Atlantic flight… not that that’s suspicious or anything.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who from here on out will be known as The Crazy Nigerian Underwear Bomber, hid a small amount of a chemical powerful enough to take down a plane in his private area.

First thought:  I’m glad those brave passengers thwarted his attack, forcing this jerk to live the rest of his life in a maximum security prison with a burned trouser snake.

After relief came annoyance and frustration.  We knew airports would quickly implement new security measures that would most likely be ineffective and inconvenient.

Of course, our prognostications came to fruition when word came out that all passengers on U.S.-bound flights were subject to full body pat-downs and individual baggage inspection.

Suddenly, all major airports were seeing delays of over 2 hours and passengers were being asked to show up even earlier than the recommended 3 hours for international flights.

The same delays occurred when the Shoe Bomber failed in 2001.  And it’s because of him we have to take off our shoes when we go through airport security.

Luckily the Underwear Bomber incident hasn’t led to us taking off our underwear when we go through airport security.  Yet.

Come New Year’s Day, it was our turn to experience the new security measures.  Passing through security at Berlin-Tegel airport wasn’t too bad at 5 in the morning despite a pat-down by a cold-faced German bodybuilder with Hulk-like hands.

Security at London Heathrow’s Terminal 5 was much worse.  Our flight to L.A. was scheduled to leave at 10:15…

We didn’t enter the security line until 10:19.

Then it was time for the slow shuffle to the pat-down area.  I don’t mind that foot-numbing, back-aching kind of shuffle in a museum, but it’s much more tedious in a line full of exhausted people eager to get home, especially when the plane is sitting at the gate waiting for us.

After a soul-crushing hour of shuffling to the front of the line, it was time for inspection.  The guy riffled through my carry-on without any kind of protective hand covering or Purell at the ready.  At that moment, I started feeling bad for him instead of myself…

My bag was full of dirty socks and underwear.  And chances are he’ll eat a sandwich with those hands one day.  No matter how many times he washes those hands with industrial strength antiseptic, the gut-wrenching feeling of having handled my used underwear isn’t something that can be washed away.  That’s something that scars the soul.

Then came the pat-down.  The completely ineffective, totally pointless pat-down.  I didn’t feel any safer because a security guard grazed my junk with the back of his hand.  He didn’t even come close to the area where The Crazy Nigerian Underwear Bomber stashed explosives.

Then news came out over the weekend that standard pat-downs like the one the middle-aged guy with the buzz cut gave me at Heathrow wouldn’t have detected the underwear bomb anyway.  So instead of easing passenger fears and forcing terrorists to rethink their future attacks, we stand in long lines and disrupt our way of life to maintain an illusion of safety.

We’re not going to say the security system is a failure.  But considering the amount of things that have been confiscated by us from airport security over the years . . . everything from hand-warmers to Christmas pudding pie . . . the fact that this guy, someone with reported religious extremist ties, traveling with hand-luggage only for a 2-week trip to the U.S., can waltz onto an airplane like he owns the thing, well it’s just a bit baffling.

People asked us if we were scared to board a plane so soon after an attempted attack.  And the answer is…

No.  The odds are still overwhelming in our favor of a safe, terrorist-free flight — pat-downs or not.  Besides, we were too tired to be scared by the time we finally got on the plane.

Photo courtesy of Tomasz Turczynski