They take security seriously. Sort of.
From what I’ve seen, most of the security paranoia is in the U.S. Every piece of luggage gets x-rayed and a lot of them get hand searched. The TSA doesn’t want any locked luggage on board the planes and if your stuff gets stolen it’s all in the course of safety – and who’s gonna complain about safety, right?
Everybody’s got their own little tale to tell about air travel in the post-9/11 world. Luggage searches, taking off your shoes, free colonoscopies, etc, etc. All that stuff is part of the airport’s security plan. The airlines are happy it’s being done, I’m sure. Why wouldn’t they want a flight where they know nobody has anything dangerous on them. Airlines love safety.
Some of them just go about it a bit differently.
I always laugh at what you can’t bring on an airplane these days. No fingernail clippers or disposable razors – they’re dangerous! And for some reason (as I’ve talked about before), airport security in Korea sees regular alkaline batteries as a threat. (Never mind that every laptop, camera, cell phone and camcorder they let on board has a battery in it, but that’s another rant altogether.)And once all that stuff’s been banned from the cabin, nobody would do anything to upset the delicate illusion of safety, right?
Wrong.
I got a bit of a surprise when the meal service on my flight this week got started. Oh, the food itself was okay (beef tips with rice and veggies, salad, a roll, and peach cake for dessert), it was the utensils that threw me for a loop. The fork, knife and spoon were quite shiny, and not because they were new.
They were metal.
Now, if you’re going to ban stuff like disposable razors and nail clippers, should you really be giving every person on board an knife?
(This next bit is from George Carlin’s 1999 “You Are All Diseased” show. He says exactly what I’m thinking, so rather than be accused of ripping him off, I’ll just quote him.)
“And if you didn’t take a weapon on board, relax. After you’ve been flying for about an hour, they’re gonna bring you a knife and fork! They actually give you a fucking knife! It’s only a table knife, but you could kill a pilot with a table knife. It might take a couple of minutes. Especially if he’s hefty. But you could get the job done.”
I can’t even remember the last time I saw metal silverware on a plane. If you fly in the U.S. nowadays, all you get is plastic stuff. Even if you order the Kosher meal, which should have metal utensils, to keep in accordance with dietary rules. (If you’ve never tried it, arrange for the Kosher meal next time you fly. It’s usually much better than the regular food.)
The Asiana set is pretty nice, actually. Not full adult-sized, but perfect for traveling. Each piece has the Asiana logo on one side and “Asiana Airlines” on the other. They’re certainly an oddity in today’s air travel experience, that’s for sure.
I guess that’s why I kept mine. ^.^
Yeah, get upset and call me a thief. I was thinking the same thing about them when they charged me $133 for my “overweight” luggage. And I know that someone else doing the same bad thing doesn’t make my doing it right, but I feel it’s necessary to point out that the person next to me did the same thing.
The little, 60-something year-old Korean grandma stole hers too.
Not only that, she’d worked out this whole scheme. She put hers back in the plastic wrapper they came in, then stashed them beside her in the seat. Not content with that bit of trickery, she then took a newspaper and laid that over the silverware, completely hiding them from view. Crafty old bird…And I thought I was being slick by sticking them into the seat pocket in front of me until after the meal trays were collected. I must also confess that this isn’t the first time I’ve done this. I’ve also got a set from Northwest Airlines that I “acquired” a while back.
Now, I just need two more airlines to complete a proper setting for four….