So, is this really the airline industry's fault? Sounds more like the government's. I doubt all those airlines enjoyed incurring the costs of parking planes that should have been in the air.

There is no such thing as "common sense".

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-…

Actually, I don't know how those costs are paid. It could be that the government compensates the airlines when this happens. Even so, the ripple effect of flight delays and cancellations (even if it's minimal, as it would be, coming from a minor airport) is probably not something they would bring about on their own.

There are a lot of good reasons to hate the airline industry, using bankruptcy laws to break union contracts is one of the best, but this is less the airline industry than the TSA, I suspect that airline employees are required to report any "threat" credible or not, and that law enforcement and prosecutors offices are instructed to take a "zero tolerance" approach to any incident at an airport.

This is a result a a society with almost no critical thinking skills, which by the way is one more thing to thank the right wing for...

I do not think the average intelligence of a TSA member allows for the government to trust them to make judgment calls. Why we hire the worst and the dimmest to ensure public safety, I will never understand.

So there can be no common sense, since common sense is not written into the book they follow.

Right-wing fuckheads HATE the TSA
Left-wing limp-wristers HATE the TSA

What the hell is the problem here, something we all agree on!

Is this a fucking democracy, of-by-and-for the people, or WHAT?

Oh... don't answer that.

@5 & @6 Connected individuals make a lot of money staffing the TSA.
Remember, it was a question of patriotism to make Homeland Security a non-union industry.

Terrorism: noun

1. the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes.

We refer to events like this as the post 9/11 world. You know, the day we allowed terrorism to work and change how we run our country.

One last thing: Joking about bombs at airports has been cause for detention by airport security for decades. This wasn't something that came along with the creation of the TSA. I don't believe it resulted in shutting down concourses or entire airports before 9/11, but it's still something that was always taken with grave seriousness - as it ought to be. If anyone lacked sense ("common" or otherwise), it's the twerp who made the crack in the first place.

@9 Yep, that was stupid, but like you said, pre-9/11 it never would've shut down the airport to this extent. Especially since the threat was deemed "non-credible" from the get go.

I don't know what it is but the TSA at Ted Stevens International is particularly staffed with mentally unstable Teenaged SS Goon Squad wanna-be's. I go fishing up there. And every time I go up there is some sort of ridiculous kerfuffle over nothing. And it's not even that busy.

One year there was some team of IDF security consultants "monitoring" the TSA teen-agents. The irony of their Gestapo'd up demeanor was clearly lost on them. They, I shit you not, yelled at passengers: "You don't know what REAL terrorism is! You don't know what real security is!"

My 82 year old father finally snapped "Oh yeah well, you don't what a real war is! The one I fought in lasted a fuck load longer than six days!"

Guess who got "special attention."

Wow, a 3-hour airport delay. Did anyone resort to cannibalism?

What the TSA did to that poor dying woman at SeaTac, and now refuses to make public the video of the scene, is unconscionable. THAT is a good example of what's wrong with the TSA.

The guy up in AK? Just a low IQ asshole who thought he'd be clever and couldn't keep his trap shut. This one's on him.

What I find most surprising is that Alaska has an airport still named after Ted Stevens. The word "idiotic" was already a typical prefix to his name (though apparently only outside AK), even before he rightfully earned "disgraced" and "crooked".