e gaping holes in security plus the enormous loss of life at the hands of terrorists justify major changes in airline security, making it much more strict and thorough.I believe that there are several points of action that airlines and the federal government can take to solve the problems in airline security. First of all, the matching bags practice needs to be streamlined. Every bag on every plane needs to be matched to a passenger, not just originating flights. And every bag needs to be hand-checked and scanned by sophisticated explosive-detection, chemical-detection, and x-ray equipment. Even though the advanced equipment costs millions of dollars per machine, every airport should have the machines capable of catching any contraband or weapon. Another action the airlines should be able to do some kind of background checks on people when they buy plane tickets. These checks should look for connections to terrorist and other violent organizations. For example, a day before Richard Reid was caught with explosives in his shoes, he was detained in the same airport. The background checks would be able to catch and avoid situations like the shoe bomber.The Federal Aviation Administration, in conjunction with the United States Federal Government, should be the ultimate enforcer of these new security precautions. Weekly mystery passenger checks should be done at every airport to check that the proper procedures are in place. These passengers would try to get through the security with some type of contraband and make sure they are caught. Even clean mystery passengers could go through to check that they went through all these procedures. Stiff fines should be in place for those airports that do not follow the correct procedure. Depending on the size of the airport, fines should be high enough to make a difference to the owners. For example, an airport in New York City should have a very hefty fine of at least $25,000 per infraction. Smaller ai...
