Ryan Lile's Blog – August 2011 Archive (3)

How to navigate a TSA checkpoint

Love it or hate it, we are stuck with airport security. The best we can do is to go in prepared and armed with knowledge. Following is how the typical TSA checkpoint works, and my advice for navigating it with the least amount of hassle. Recommendations are mine, and will come as no surprise to regular readers of this blog.

The first step is research. If you actively avoid the scanners like I do, you should have an idea of what you’re up against before you get to the airport. The…

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Added by Ryan Lile on August 25, 2011 at 3:02pm — 5 Comments

Fare sale of the century

You haven’t heard about a fare war this week, so you must be wondering what airfares I’m talking about. The answer to that question is simple: all of them.

I saw a thought-provoking piece over at Jaunted today. It included a photo of an American Airlines advertisement from 1964 that was promoting service from California to New York for the…

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Added by Ryan Lile on August 23, 2011 at 10:35am — No Comments

New TSA screening program to punish ‘facecrime’

For the last several years the acronym-loving Transportation Security Administration has been running a program called SPOT. This stands for Screening Passengers by Observation Technique, and is essentially a very low-rent attempt to do what security staff at Israel's airports do; that is, to detect people with mal-intent by reading their facial expressions and body language. You would be excused for thinking this has already been done on television. Welcome to the world of Dr. Cal Lightman…

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Added by Ryan Lile on August 2, 2011 at 3:48pm — No Comments