So a big deal is being made about a woman with muscular dystrophy who apparently resorted to crawling through the terminal to make a connecting flight because of the way she was treated by Delta.

From the Consumerist:

Julianna, who has muscular dystrophy, missed the connecting flight because nobody came with a wheelchair until 8:05—the same time the connecting flight took off. To make matters worse, the plane crew told Julianna she might make the flight anyway if she stopped waiting for help and got off the plane right now, so she crawled down the stairs on her own. When the wheelchair came she was “wheeled into a back room and advised” that her plane had taken off.

There’s more to it — Delta people couldn’t be found to get her from one part of the terminal to the other and so forth.

The employees in this room were debating who would get me to the ticket gate to be re-ticketed because it was no one’s job and the appropriate personnel were not responding to their calls. After that was resolved I was given a new boarding pass for a flight expected to leave at 12:55 AM. Then this person advised me she cannot get me from a D Gate to Gate A9. She again called for the appropriate personnel who never showed.

Of course the comments are pretty harsh against Delta for treating her that way.

But why is this Delta’s fault?

First, the Consumerist headline: “Delta Makes Woman With Muscular Dystrophy Crawl Off Plane.” That’s sensational, but not true. They didn’t make her do anything. They were waiting for a wheelchair and gave her the option to crawl. She could have waited.

It’s not as if she suddenly contracted this condition on the plane. She knew she had muscular dystrophy, she knew she required a wheelchair, and yet she didn’t make any provisions for having someone take her to her connecting flight? And, if she knew that it takes time to go from Point A to Point B — whether by wheeling or crawling — why schedule connecting flights so close together? (And it’s not as if crawling is such a big deal, really.)

Further, she’s upset that the Delta people couldn’t help her right away. But she didn’t tell them in advance that she was coming, and it’s not like these folks don’t have jobs to do. Maybe they couldn’t just drop everything to push Julianna around in a wheelchair. Sure, I realize that she needs help, and it would be nice if someone could give it to her, but it’s being a big hard on the Delta folks to complain that they didn’t rush to her aid. Maybe they couldn’t.

Look, folks, if you need assistance you also need to plan ahead for it. Relying on there being nice people at your destination to help you doesn’t really demonstrate great planning. And then complaining that you aren’t being catered to? A bit unfair, doncha think?

I wondered — still wonder, actually — why the folks at Swiss Army Brands haven’t started to offer a carry-on-friendly "knife." I’m thinking of one without a blade, but with other useful tools that would get past those frakking TSA jerks security.

Oddly, it was Florsheim, the shoe maker, who ran with the idea. The company is now offering "airport-friendly" shoes that don’t have steel shanks and can thus don’t need to be removed.

H/T to, and a shot of the tag on the shoes at, bloginfosec.

Here’s a disturbing trend, and something to add to the long list of things that this country will have to undo when Bush is finally out of office: International travelers are looking for ways to avoid stopovers in the U.S. because of the frustrating, belittling, and bully-like treatment they receive at the hands of Homeland Security officials looking for possible "terrorists" (i.e., any kind of potential criminal).

Wikitravel even has a page devoted to the topic. An excerpt:

Anyone arriving into the United States or one of its territories (like Puerto Rico) and not covered by the Visa Waiver Program requires at least a C1 transit visa to transit the airport. This can be expensive and time-consuming to obtain, and you can be denied the visa: the requirements are the same as the full B-2 tourist visa. If you arrive without this visa and aren’t eligible for a waiver, even for a fuel stop or transit, you will be sent home and recorded as having been denied entry to the US.

The United States does not allow sterile transit, which means that even if you have an immediate connecting flight, you have to pass through Customs and Immigration. This is time-consuming and tedious (4 hours or more is recommended to be safe), and all travellers transiting in the USA using either a transit visa or the Visa Waiver Program will be photographed and fingerprinted.

You can see why people would want to avoid an episode of US Security Theater. Boing Boing had a story the other day about a Finnish folk band that was detained for the crime of having flown in from Amsterdam. From the Minneapolis Star-Tribune comes the details:

Erkki Maattanen, a filmmaker for Finnish Public Television who accompanied the musicians on the September trip, said his questioners seemed to think the entourage was smuggling drugs or intending to work without a permit. "I kept trying to tell them why we were here, but they’d just yell, ‘Shut up!"’ he said.

and

"They threatened us with severe punishments if we talk to each other," according to the complaint signed by musicians Ninni Poijärvi and Mika Kuokkanen, "Through the walls, I can hear officers yelling, screaming. They ask about the purpose of our trip — except we are only allowed to give yes-or-no answers. I try to talk about our plans to meet with Finnish-American folk musicians. Nobody listens. They interrupt me constantly and they yell, ‘You are a liar!"’

The sad thing is, none of these tactics help keep anyone more secure. All it does is tick people off, hurt business here, and make things tougher for everyone. Soon after 9/11 I flew. We all looked at the extra security measures as something understandable and appropriate. But now I realize how foolish and wasteful they are.

The fact is, if terrorists wanted to hit us again, it’s not going to be that hard. Heck, drive a small car bomb through the doors of a mall. Or open up with a hail of bullets outside an airport terminal.

The key point to remember is that the aim of terrorism isn’t to kill people — that’s just icing on the cake. The aim is to scare people. And it’s working.