Why do I prefer current airport procedures?

Michael Stack writes me:

“Hi Tyler – you wrote about preferring current airport procedures to pre-9/11 procedures. Do you plan to elaborate on this? I have a hard time understanding why you’d feel that way.

Here is the list I produced – these are guesses as to why you might feel the way you do:

• Because friends/family can’t meet you at the gate, it reduces crowding in some of the stores, restaurants, and waiting areas.
• Security imposes a higher cost on travelers which reduces crowding – what are the pricing effects? Is this a transfer from airlines? From travelers?
• You’re very worried about another terrorist attack and think our security substantially reduces the chance of an attack.

I can’t really think of many other reasons you’d prefer the current approach.”

TC again: My view is fully his third explanation.  Whether we like it or not, people and policymakers respond irrationally to terror attacks on airplanes, or terror attacks using airplanes.  I do think the current procedures stop or discourage some number of idiots, noting they likely would not stop a sufficiently sophisticated attack attempt.  But a lot of criminals are simply some mix of stupid and incompetent or poor on execution.  You don’t want to have attacks on airplanes become any more focal/copycatted than they already are.

I fully get all the “why don’t they just set off a bomb by the passengers waiting to get through security” points, and the like.  I just don’t think that is how it works.  Why don’t school shooters go to playgrounds instead, or wherever?  Maybe someday they will, but for now there is an odd stickiness in the nature of the events.

I don’t doubt that various features of the status quo could be improved, such as more security entry points being open and a better bureaucracy for generating and confirming pre-check privileges.  Some of those improvements, however, might be more rather than less intrusive, such as more spot checks of passengers at security or during boarding.

Many people have objected to the point I made, but I don’t think the benefit-cost analysis on this one is close.  Nor do I see a huge voter or elite demand to return to the pre-9/11 world for airports.