Saturday, 02/22/03

Matthew Brzezinski's NYT Magazine story about the social consequences of fighting terrorism is, of course, stupefyingly scary, and should with any luck spark another round of jovial revolutionary coffeeklatsches between the Maxine Waterses and Bob Barrs of modern American society. The article mixes plausible speculation with first-person reporting about the domestic security innovations we'll soon be importing from the Phillipines, Israel, Singapore, and other relaxed getaway locations.

Somehow, the single most unnerving piece of information I'm going to take away is the news that El Al operates a fleet of thirty planes. El Al, of course, is Israel's national airline and the gold standard for preventing aviational terror attacks, albeit by methods that would be unconstitutional in the US. I had the impression they were a real airline.

To put this thirty-planes number in some perspective, wee little American carrier JetBlue, in the midst of a killer industry slump, is buying two more planes from Airbus, for a total fleet of 52.

Airlines you've never heard of run more jets than El Al. Delta's "Song" carrier (designed to compete with the likes of Southwest and Jetblue) is starting with 36 planes. And the big boys? United, with 526 jets, is planning to cut 32 planes from its fleet to get profitable, while American, currently at 695, last year cut 40.

Brzezinski's article uses the El Al factoid to shift its focus to the fiscal and practical problems with perfect security, but the number does his job for him. My back-of-the-envelope calculations for the cost of "protecting" American airlines like El Al protects theirs shot up by an order of magnitude, and we're talking about an industry that already can't afford a tasty sandwich.

What do Americans hate even more than living in fear for their lives? Paying for stuff. Forward-thinking CEOs seem like the logical next guests at the Waters-Barr strategy session. 07:48PM «

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