Air Travel - BobCarriesOn

May 16, 2014April 9, 2015

When everybody is a comedian, security slows at Las Vegas Airport

Las Vegas’ McCarran International Airport has announced it may have to review the effectiveness of the eight new security videos it introduced this week.

The airport security videos, featuring Las Vegas entertainers, some of whom people may have heard of, are meant to show the airport’s many inexperienced travelers how to get through security checkpoints in the shortest time possible.

“Unfortunately, the videos seem to be projecting the wrong message,” said Bob Payne, McCarran’s Assistant Director of Terminal Entertainment.

Payne said the airport security videos were released on Tuesday, highlighting tips by comedians Louie Anderson, Carrot Top, Murray SawChuck, the Blue Man Group, Terry Fator, the cast from “Raiding the Rock Vault,” and a father and son Mafia act, only one of which was carrying a machine gun in his violin case.

“Ever since then,” Payne said, “the airport security lines have slowed dramatically, as passengers insist on talking to TSA agents using hand-puppets, trying to make 5 oz. bottles magically shrink, and attempting to throw their voice so it sounds like people are crying for help from inside the x-ray machine.”

Payne said that just one among many security issues stemming from the videos has been that so many passengers are arriving at the checkpoints dressed from head to toe in blue body paint that the TSA agents, who do have loved ones to go home to, are hesitant to do anywhere near the number of pat-downs they normally would.

“Worst of all,” Payne said, “is that everybody thinks they are a comedian, which wouldn’t be so bad, except that far too many people, as they go through the x-ray machines, are starting their routine with, ‘This one will kill you.’ And when we hear the word kill we have procedures we have to follow, which just slows everything down that much more.”

September 3, 2013May 15, 2014

Airlines face sombrero crisis

A recent study confirms what the airlines and the flying public has long suspected. More than 70 percent of sombreros brought aboard aircraft are left behind by people pretending to forget them.

“The explanation is simple,” says Bob Payne, spokesman for the National Association of Airlines Against the Abusive Use of Overhead Bin Space. “Owning a souvenir sombrero, especially if its purchase in some way involved margaritas, always seems like a much better idea when you are actually in Mexico than it does on the flight home.”

The result, says Payne, is not only that aircraft cleaning crews are having to spend considerable time removing the hats but the storage problem created for airline lost and found departments is reaching crisis proportions.

“They haven’t seen anything like it since 2008 when they were inundated with Obama bobble head dolls,” Payne said.

One possible solution to the sombrero crisis, Payne said, would be to have TSA agents wear the cast-off headgear, thus making airport security screening a more welcoming, festive experience, especially if it were possible to get drug-sniffing dogs involved in wearing the hats, too.

Another solution, more popular with the airlines, would be to charge a fee of $25 for the first sombrero brought onboard, and $350 for the second. “The beauty of the latter plan,” Payne said, “Is that it would sober up most of the offending passengers long before they got to their seats.”

Bob Payne is the editor in chief and occasionally fact checker for BobCarriesOn.com.

May 21, 2013September 2, 2013

If the TSA could only perform, like they do in Tahiti

After arriving in Tahiti recently for my fifteenth or so visit, (he said, trying to keep as modest a tone as possible) I was reminded once again that traveling doesn’t necessarily have to be the cruel and not so unusual punishment we have come to expect.

I was flying Air Tahiti Nui, and even in economy, with enough leg-room and enough in-seat movies so that I didn’t have to resort to watching the Gangster Squad in French, it was – in relative terms – a pleasant enough flight.

What was most pleasing about getting there, though, was that meeting us as we entered Tahiti’s terminal, just as there had been for every one of my other flights, was a woman presenting each arrival with a flower, and a couple of local guys, dressed in brightly colored traditional outfits, serenading us with guitar and ukulele.

How much nicer travel would be, I thought, if someone, perhaps TSA agents needing a little overtime, would meet us in a similar manner when we arrived at LAX, or JFK, or Miami.

How hard would it be to arrange? After all, if they used TSA agents, security clearance for the performers wouldn’t be an issue. And with the lack of common sense so many of the agents exhibit, you just have to believe that many of them are already musicians.

And this would be America going to work. So you’d think they’d be able to put together an even more extravagant, and memorable, performance than some little place like Tahiti, who has nothing more to draw from financially than the ever-dwindling resources of France.

Can’t you see it? A Latin beat as you enter Miami. Jazz welcoming you to New Orleans. A cacophony of car horns for New York.

My only fear? That the TSA-staffed program would have women handing out flowers, too – as they barked: “Married. Behind your left ear. Single. Behind your right ear. Looking forward to a cavity search. Behind both.” — Bob Payne

Long-time editor-in-chief of the travel humor site BobCarriesOn.com, Bob Payne was recently appointed as a consultant to the TSA’s performing arts program.

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