Well, I can hear the person who lodged the complaint in the opening post in another hypothetical situation.

While sitting in the tail section of the plane as it is spiraling toward the ground, the front half of the plane having been blown to smithereens by a suicide bomber, the OPer cursing airport security for their lack of thoroughness.

I've flown a bit recently (round trips from Seattle to Denver and Kansas City, MO). I use a wheelchair. The main problem I have there is not with airport security, it's with the baggage handlers. They seem to resent anything that won't stack neatly, like books on a book shelf, and take their ire out by treating whatever it is roughly, and just cramming it (think "guitar case"). I've had one wheelchair's frame bent so that it wouldn't unfold properly. I lodged a complaint when the damaged wheelchair was delivered to me as I debarked from the plane, and an airline supervisor ordered a rental chair, stat (delivered immediately), for me to use while I was on my trip, and gave me a nice check, with which I was able to buy a brand new chair, better than the one they wrecked.

I also have a titanium rod and four screws in my left thigh. I explain ahead of time why their scanner will go nuts, and they cut me out of the line and scan me with a wand. They can also feel the two screw heads in my left knee. So far, they've been polite and fairly gentle whenever they wanted to check my leg (squeezing through my pant leg). Only once. The others just scanned my leg with the wand and took my word for it.

Air travel these days is a bitch. But the security folks in general are just people. Some are assholes (give some people a uniform and a badge and they go power-mad!), but I've found most of them to be generally harried, but fairly polite.

Don Firth

P. S. Some years ago, in Grand Rapids, MI, they (Arthritic Duck Airlines) wouldn't "special handle" my guitar (hand carry it on board and put it into the coat closet, like other airlines had always done), but made me buy a seat for the guitar. Child's fare. Cost me an extra thirty bucks. So I flew for a half-hour, from Grand Rapids to Chicago's O'Hare airport, with my guitar case strapped into a seat beside me. No problem from O'Hare back to Seattle-Tacoma International. Special handling as usual, no bitching or complaining.

But then, I understand that Segovia didn't trust any airline personnel to handle his guitar and insisted on buying it a seat and carrying it himself.