Last week, British officials foiled a terrorist plot to blow a commercial airplane to hell over the Atlantic Ocean. Yesterday, a West Virginia airport was evacuated after security officials detained a Pakistani woman with suspicious liquids in her possession. Today, we learned from a TSA spokesperson that the liquids tested positive for explosive residue. In addition, a British aircraft bound for Egypt made an emergency landing in Italy when the pilot reported that he suspected a bomb was on board. Earlier this morning, Indian authorities stationed over 100 soldiers around the Taj-Mahal after an alleged al-Qaida letter threatened to blow it up.
Now, we have some greedy, self-absorbed loony demanding that Britain eliminate its restrictions on carry-on luggage and liquids because these “bizarre” new policies have cost his company around £2m ($3.8m USD) since the London terror scare last week. If his demands are not met, Ryanair’s CEO Michael O'Leary claims he may sue the government for compensation, citing section 93 of the Transport Act 2000. This act obligates the Secretary of State to provide compensation to certain entities negatively affected by any new state-sanctioned policies enforced during a national emergency. O’Leary considers Ryanair one of those entities.
Ryanair prefers to have customers take more of their luggage on board with them in order to facilitate efficient passenger traffic to and from the planes, allowing flights to remain on schedule while maintaining low fares. Unfortunately, the British government has greatly inconvenienced O’Leary in its effort to protect passengers from suicide bombers. According to BBC correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones, Mr O'Leary was very concerned because the "new regulations are a threat to his business.”
"He depends on getting away fast, no baggage in the hold and a quick turn around at the other end. If he is kept behind schedule his whole business starts to suffer,” she said. In a lame attempt to deflect the public’s ire, O’Leary stated that "If they allow these restrictions to stay in place, then the government will have handed the extremists an enormous PR victory." So, lifting the restrictions is a better option? I’d rather watch a video clip of terrorists dancing in the street with glee over their “PR victory” than watch the same clip imbedded in a news article depicting five plane wreckages.
Fortunately, the British government will probably not give into O’Leary’s petty demands. A spokesman with Britain’s Department for Transport stated that "We have no intention of compromising security levels nor do we anticipate changing our requirements in the next seven days." I’ll be very interested (and amused) to see how this case pans out.
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