The great airline security debate

I don't have much to add on the security issues that Bruce, Adam and EKR haven't covered already.

While Perry Metzeger is right in pointing out that it is probably not difficult to usedomestic household items and it probably isn't difficult to create an automatic trigger and put the bomb in carryon the UK police are probably taking precautions in case a missed plotter tries to carry out the attack regardless. While they think they caught all of them it is impossible to be certain until the other plotters are debriefed. If there is a missed plotter out there it is much less likely he can create a new plan with an automatic trigger than continue with the old one.

But as my wife points out, there is likely to be a major affect on all those airlines that have been cutting back on in-flight catering. Until now this has been tolerable because you can buy something much better on the ground than they used to serve in coach class. Now its going to be a six hour flight with the only food available the $8 'snack assortment' presuming that the people the other end of the plane don't buy them all first.

Duty free is also going to be a thing of the past. I never saw the point of lugging bottles round the world to save $2 on duty but its a huge part of the spirits business.

In the UK no carryon is allowed at all apart from the bare essentials. So no laptops. That means losing five hours work on a transatlantic flight (six hours minus the time for takeoff, landing, meals etc.) Presumably this is a temporary measure.