Although millions of dollars are spent on airline security each year in the United States, it only took $100.00 for a JetBlue ticket agent to allow a unknown package to go onto a flight, coming from an unknown person.
On November 19, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) was at Charlotte Douglas Airport testing out JetBlue’s security. Their goal was to try and get an unaccompanied package onto a flight headed to Boston and unfortunately, they succeeded. An undercover TSA agent told a JetBlue ticket agent that he needed to get a package to Boston that day and would pay the agent $100.00 for helping. The agent took the $100, put it in his pocket and proceeded to follow the unknown person’s instructions. The ticket agent chose a passenger’s name at random, which just happened to be an unaccompanied minor, and the package went through the screening process with no problems. Although the package was harmless, the TSA pulled the package just before being loaded onto the aircraft.
’œThat’s really alarming,’ Anthony Amore, a former high-ranking TSA official at Logan Airport told a local Boston CBS station. ’œWhen you have multiple layers in place you hope that they all stand in the way of a terrorist or someone who wishes us harm. In this instance, many of the layers were cast aside and we were left with this one layer of checked baggage screening.’
When the local station asked the TSA for a comment, they were told, “While we cannot comment on the specifics of an open investigation, TSA can assure travelers that, like checked baggage, every package tendered at the airline counter is screened for explosives.’ JetBlue confirmed that they are ’œfully cooperating with the TSA’s investigation’ and ’œthe involved crew member is no longer employed at JetBlue.’
I do not share this story to cause additional security-related fear, nor do I want to “teach the terrorists” how to commit crimes against passengers. I share it, since I think it shows how spending so much money on the front door of airline security and so little attention on the back is a big mistake. Although JetBlue is partly to blame for training issues, this could have happened with almost any airline. They just happened to have a bad-seed-employee in the wrong place at the wrong time. Currently, the TSA is not talking about how often they conduct these sorts of tests and how often they get a package through.
Sadly, this story is just one of many that place many questions on back-door airport security. At the same exact airport, just a few days earlier, a teenager was able to sneak onto the airport secured area, illegally board a US Airways aircraft without being caught (unfortunately, he died en-route). There is also the story of the pilot who pointed out that airport security workers could by-pass security and caused him a lot of grief. Similar stories keep popping up and I have a feeling more will continue to do so. As passengers continue to give up their freedoms and are willing to put up with many annoyances to fly, while at the same time seeing how porous the security is behind the scenes, people will take note and demand for change.
ZA102 sitting on the factory floor in June 2010. Photo by Jon Ostrower.
Jon Ostrower (via Flight Blogger) and Matt Cawby (via KPAE blog) have both confirmed that the 9th Boeing 787 Dreamliner (ZA102 – N1006F), will be taking flight from Paine Field tomorrow. Although Boeing doesn’t confirm the time of lift off, I assume it should be around 10am.
ZA102 will be the first Dreamliner to actually be delivered to an airline and fly passengers. It is painted in the All Nippon Airways (ANA) tail, but has a white body. It is expected that ANA will have a special livery for this Dreamliner.
If you are in the Seattle area and have Monday off, head on over to Paine Field and experience a Dreamliner taking off for the first time. The weather says it will most likely rain, but that shouldn’t stop you. I am hoping to try and do a live video feed via my iPhone, but we shall see how it goes. Follow Twitter for the updates on the first flight of ZA102.
We are all still waiting on Boeing’s updated delivery schedule for the Boeing 787 Dreamliner after ZA002’s fire. For more information on the rest of the 787 test fleet, check out Ostrower’s most recent blog.
We are getting closer and closer to the Boeing 747-8 Intercontinental’s first flight. Boeing is preparing for the date and on January 8th, completed their first practice flight of the actual airplane. No, you didn’t miss the first flight of the airplane, the test was totally done on the ground, in the Boeing factory.
This was the first time all all the onboard systems were tested at the same time during the factory gauntlet testing and everything went well.
From what I am seeing, we should be seeing the rollout of the plane maybe in the next few weeks and hopefully first flight shortly after that.
This is surely not the first time-lapse livery video we have seen, but this one is unique. Instead of starting the video of the aircraft being pulled into a paint hangar, we start the video with watching the actual Airbus A320 being manufactured. Probably my favorite part is seeing how they have to raise the nose, which lowers the tail, to get the A320 out of the manufacturing hangar (at about 2:35).
“In celebration of Air New Zealand’s long running support of rugby in New Zealand, our first new A320 will arrive in January sporting a sleek black livery complete with silver fern motif and Koru on its tail,” says Air New Zealand CEO Rob Fyfe. This is the seventeenth year that the airline has sponsored the New Zealand Rugby Football union.
The Superjet is a new regional jet that will compete in the 75-100 seat market. The aircraft saw its first flight on May 19, 2008, but still has not made their first delivery. Last I heard and still according to their website, they were expecting to deliver the first aircraft during the fourth quarter of 2010. However Ostrower is reporting that the airliner is expected to earn Russian certification by the end of this month and European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) certification in 2012. The Superjet has almost 200 orders and the first will be delivered to Aeroflot Armavia (updated: first two go to Armavia, then Aeroflot will get their first)
Recently Russian prime minister, Vladimir Putin put pressure on Aeroflot and their subsidiaries to purchase more Russian-built aircraft to help with their fleet modernization versus Airbus and Boeing. Currently Aeroflot has 40 Superjets on order with an option for 15 additional.
