Schneier Talks to the Head of TSA

Bruce Schneier recently had the chance to sit down with Kip Hawley, head of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), and discuss some of the frustrations travelers experience head-on. "In April, Kip Hawley, the head of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), invited me to Washington for a meeting. Despite some serious trepidation, I accepted. And it was a good meeting. Most of it was off the record, but he asked me how the TSA could overcome its negative image. I told him to be more transparent, and stop ducking the hard questions. He said that he wanted to do that. He did enjoy writing a guest blog post for Aviation Daily, but having a blog himself didn't work within the bureaucracy."

Re:Dignity

[kevin_conaway]

I think you just have major OCD. There is nothing unsanitary about walking a few feet without shoes, especially on a dry, hard surface. You can't spread any diseases that way. If you are so concerned, wear socks or something. People walk barefoot all the time at the beach, which is far more unsanitary -- you could step on something sharp, for instance. And I've never been at an airport where the screening area was not perfectly clean.

Are you serious?

Hard, flat surfaces are a breeding ground for athletes foot, plantar warts and other lovely fungii that would love to accompany you on your destination. The likelihood of contracting one these issues is magnified when the surface is wet which happens when your feet are sweat or someone elses were

Re:Ask him...

[yaphadam097]

The TSA is not responsible for the no-fly list. They only enforce it. Your question should be directed to the FBI. Specifically, a little known office called the TSC. http://www.dhs.gov/xnews/releases/press_release_02 46.shtm [dhs.gov]

Re:Dignity

[mi]

There is nothing unsanitary about walking a few feet without shoes, especially on a dry, hard surface. You can't spread any diseases that way.

Viruses can survive on the dry, hard door knobs for 24 hours [google.com]. If whoever walked through the gates 5 minutes before me had a viral foot illness of some sort (such as HFHF [cdc.gov]), the subsequent passengers can pick it up — even through the socks — a wonderful thing to bring with you to vacation or a business trip.

If you are so concerned, wear socks or something.

I do — and I throw them out after the fact, leading to rather undignifying looks from the TSA people.

As far as having the TSA employees barefoot: that's just an incredibly stupid idea. I don't think more needs to be said.

Of course, there needs to be. You can't just call something stupid (credibly or otherwise) without substantiating. What's wrong with the idea? If the place is good enough for us to walk, certainly it is fine for the TSA folks.

Re:Not the TSA, it's the airlines I have issues wi

[wiggles]

Not to defend these abhorrent procedures, but these are two ways they use to reduce the overall ticket price at the expense of people who don't actually use the tickets they pay for. If you kill these practices, then the average ticket price would necessarily go up. If only one airline killed these procedures, then the market would drift away from them as their prices rise. If these practices are ever done away with, it will have to be due to an act of congress or the FAA in order to raise all ticket prices on all airlines by a similar (if not equal) amount.

Re:Doing their job?

[Puff of Logic]

Pilots can only work a certain number of hours per month (I forget if this is an FAA rule or just part of their collective contract).

It's due to the Federal Aviation Regulations (FARs) which are very specific as to how many hours may be flown in a given time period, how many rest hours are required, and so on. Some airlines really push the line though (even to the point of breaking the FAR) by doing things like assuming any time the pilot isn't in the cockpit is "rest" time, including travel to-and-from hotels. Pilots, predictably, don't find these antics amusing and thus serious tension arises between airline management and the line crews. Union negotiation is often seen as the only protection that crews have from these practices, although pilot unions aren't exactly popular either.

Re:Not the TSA, it's the airlines I have issues wi

[CohibaVancouver]

Stop overbooking. Just stop. No conditions, exceptions, nothing.

Overbooking happens because on a certain percentage of flights business travelers always fail to show up. By overbooking the flight they can sell the seats of those no-shows. More bums in the plane = Cheaper airfares. Therefore, I don't want them to stop overbooking as airfares I pay will by extension go up. Bumping = cheaper airfares. Typically most overbooked flights are swarmed with volunteers willing to be bumped in exchange for perks, so this is a red herring. If you show up sufficiently early to check in it's unlikely you'll be bumped due to an overbooking scenario.

Allow tickets to be transferable. That would allow people's plans to be more flexible (but prevent some of the ways they price gouge).

Tickets *are* transferable if you purchase the correct fare class. If you purchase a cheaper ticket there are more restrictions. As a consumer, I don't want all tickets to be transferable, as 'cheaper' fares will disappear.

Re:Not the TSA, it's the airlines I have issues wi

[CohibaVancouver]

More time waiting is equivalent to a higher cost ticket. Perhaps your time is worthless?

Nope, but if I'm travelling in business I can just get to the airport and work on my laptop. Who cares whether I'm at my desk or at Starbucks? And if I'm travelling for pleasure I've already taken the day off so who cares if I'm hanging at home or at the bar in the airport?

In reality, ticket prices should go down as the flight nears, in order to encourage sales of the remaining seats.

Incorrect - The vast majority of people who purchase tickets "last minute" are people who MUST travel on date X at time Y. As a result, the airline can and does charge more for these seats, for the 'privilege' of booking last minute. If you study airline economics you'll see that there isn't a pool of last-minute travellers who snap up the cheap seats. There is, however, a pool of last-minute travellers who will pay more to travel right now.

Additionally, agencies should be able to purchase discount tickets and resell them later on.

They do: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airline_consolidators [wikipedia.org]

Both of these things are only possible if all classes of tickets are transferable, and they also both reduce the costs to you as a consumer. Additionally a transferable ticket allows you to cut your losses if it turns out you can't travel as planned.

As a passenger, I don't want to subsidize other passengers who can't 'travel as planned.' Those pax should be purchasing insurance or more expensive tickets, not asking me to subsidize them through my ticket.

Profit margins on the airlines are razor-thin. If 'all classes of tickets were transferable' then the higher costs of administering this would be passed on to the flying public. You and I would pay higher fares. And I don't want to.

You're a complete fool

And you're a complete fool for accusing others of being fools without doing your homework first.

If you think non-transferable tickets save you money. They exist to extract the most money possible out of you, not to save you money.

They save me money. The airline has said "If you're willing to commit to this flight on this day, X days in advance, and you're not going to change your ticket I'll only charge you $Z. If you want additional services on your ticket, we'll charge you more."

Re:thanks for saving me the trouble

[AeroIllini]

Football mum goes in the queue with a bottle of water. They take away the bottle, nobody checked whether she was a threat or not.

Terrorist goes in the queue with a bottle of clear liquid that will blow up an aeroplane. They take away the bottle, nobody checked whether he was a threat or not.

You go in the line with a bottle of clear liquid that is innocuous, but incidentally happens to react with the clear liquid the terrorist was bringing. They take away the bottle, toss it into the trash, it leaks...

BOOM.

In a busy terminal full of people.

The fact of the matter is, if there is the SLIGHTEST bit of suspicion that a container contains liquids which are a danger to the people around them, then proper handling procedures must be followed, including isolation and proper disposal. The fact that they're not checking for threats is not the point... the point is they are tossing potentially explosive liquids together in a standard trash can in a terminal full of hundreds of people. If the liquid wasn't potentially dangerous, then why do they take it away?

Re:Not the TSA, it's the airlines I have issues wi

[ivan256]

The vast majority of people who purchase tickets "last minute" are people who MUST travel on date X at time Y. As a result, the airline can and does charge more for these seats, for the 'privilege' of booking last minute. If you study airline economics you'll see that there isn't a pool of last-minute travellers who snap up the cheap seats. There is, however, a pool of last-minute travellers who will pay more to travel right now.

You've got the cause and effect backwards. The only reason the airline can charge more is because they can prevent you from buying a seat from a third party. The only time tickets should be more expensive as the date grows nearer is if the flight is sold-out. The economics for ticket sales for air travel are minimally different than for concerts, theater, anything with a limited pool of tickets. And you'll be hard pressed to find disagreement on that from a non-industry source. With cheaper seats as the departure time nears, more flights would be full. People would be forced to pay a premium to book early and guarantee a seat. Business and casual travelers would be more likely to fly at the last minute, and the need for overbooking would diminish, as travelers who now stay home would once again start flying standby. Do you not remember what it was like before the rules changed in the '90s?

They save me money. The airline has said "If you're willing to commit to this flight on this day, X days in advance, and you're not going to change your ticket I'll only charge you $Z. If you want additional services on your ticket, we'll charge you more."

The flaw in your logic is two fold. First that $Z is the lowest you'll pay even if the rules were different, and second that you don't consider the costs of inflexibility. Yeah yeah, your life makes it easy to plan in advance, and you can work from the airport. Bully for you. Most people aren't like that.

And before you accuse people of not doing their homework, you should read your own link. The ability to make airline tickets non-transferable has all but destroyed the consolidator's market within the US; it remains only for niche travel and for associated group rates. Outside the US without the artificial restriction they are still flourishing and keeping airfare lower than it is here. You, sir, are the one who needs to do his homework.

Re:Not the TSA, it's the airlines I have issues wi

[CohibaVancouver]

The only reason the airline can charge more is because they can prevent you from buying a seat from a third party.

Yes and no - United says 'we're the only ones who can sell you a ticket' but they can't prevent you from buying a ticket on Southwest, JetBlue or Delta. They're in effect the 'third party' - The competition. Competition in major markets has also pretty much determined the lowest fare available anyway - So even if these mythical 'third parties' could resell tickets they probably wouldn't have a discounted fare to offer you anyway. This is one of the reasons Priceline hasn't done as well as one might have expected. In the air the fare you have to bid isn't much, if at all, below what simply purchasing a ticket would have cost.

The economics for ticket sales for air travel are minimally different than for concerts, theater

They're quite different, actually.

Here's something someone recently sent me that helps explain it -

Major airlines have rarely, if ever, posted reasonable profits. So, keeping in mind that a good percentage of flights are always going to lose money, the airline industry has a system that tries to keep this in check. Basically, every flight has its seats divided up into 'classes' (this has nothing to do with first class/business etc) that we'll call A, B, C and D. These classes have mostly to do with price.

When an airline plans a flight, they look at how much it's going to cost, and divide the seats up in different price classes. A simplified model might look like: Cost of flight : $20,000 When the flight is announced, the airline will say 'if we sell 20 seats at $1000 we break even'. So, They add 20 seats to the plan with an A class.

... or, 40 seats at $500 ... B class .. 80 at $250 etc.

Then through some process of voodoo economics, the number of various classed seats that must be sold is decided.

So, 3 months before a flight, you can get a C class ticket quite easily, as they expect that in that time they might sell 80 seats. As it gets closer to the flight day, all the $250 seats may have sold, or they start to realize that they are not all going to sell, so they stop selling C class tickets and only have B. Twice the price, but you need half as many customers, which is half as many seats, meals, bags, etc etc.

A few days before the flight there may only be A class tickets, as they'd rather sell just one ticket at A class price than 4 at B class. If you _really_ need to get somewhere you'll pay whatever they ask right? Besides, if they've sold all the C class, they break even. Adding cheap seats at this point can actually lose money (more staff needed, more fuel needed etc.)

Then, standby is D class.. since we're about to leave, and we're not going to sell these seats, we'll get you on board... but only if we need the money.

So, they don't want to sell you a seat at any old price, because it takes a seat away from someone who *might* pay more for it. This is why pricing flights is so complex. It may not even be NP complete, and it's nowhere near O(n).

This is very different than the theatre, where they have three or four 'classes of service' and sell off tickets cheap the day of the show.