February 24, 2009
I wanted to let you all know of a very disturbing TSA Security Directive (SD) that is being implemented under the radar that affects ALL U.S. airports with commercial Part 121 scheduled airline service.
This is reality folks, and several of us here in good ol’ western Colorado attended a meeting with TSA personnel tonight in Montrose MTJ and confirmed this shocking news firsthand.
This SD would require that every person who steps foot in the airport operations area be screened for security clearance and badged before being allowed to have access on the ramp. If you are not badged, then you must wait to be escorted by a badged representative and escorted off the AOA.
I think we should all delay getting badges, then rush them all on the same day. Or gather a coalition of airport business’s like airline support companies to delay getting thier badges, and have flights miss thier catering, have planes not get fuel on time, have air traffic controllers unable to pass the gates to come to work.
The big message WE are missing is that WE are the ones who run this industry. The 19 year old pumping gas has no say, he does what his boss tells him. But those of us in a position to create trouble in service if we cannot get to our airplanes has far reaching ripple effect to the millions of people on airlines across the country.
Essentially, we do a security strike. If we can’t get to work, we can’t launch and receive airplanes and the air transport system comes to a halt.
Media takes notice, passengers complain, we shrug and say, “Sorry, TSA (Thousands Standing Around) says we cannot get to our jobs”