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kube-systemyesterday at 5:36 PM7 repliesview on HN

4. A normal level of risk aversion in one of the most risk averse industries

If airlines ignored every threat that was “probably not” a real threat, they’d ignore all of them. It’s better to inconvenience a few thousand passengers than it is to kill a few hundred.


Replies

Haven880yesterday at 5:55 PM

How many threats did actually turn out to be real to date? I couldn't find this being published. But how many threats did happen without any indication (only after the perpetrators tell). I can easily recalled maybe 3-4 incidents. So the issue here is do knowing threats really help?

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f33d5173yesterday at 7:25 PM

No they wouldn't. A fundamental part of a threat is to make it very clear that there's a threat. The reason you threaten is to get some concession, otherwise you wouldn't bother threatening.

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basilikumyesterday at 6:49 PM

There was literally no threat.

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wat10000yesterday at 9:04 PM

The industry is usually smarter than this.

For example, there are many pieces of equipment that can be broken and they’ll still fly, because it’s not essential or there’s enough redundancy.

Child safety seats are not required even though they’d save lives, because the extra hassle and expense would cause some parents to drive instead, which is much more dangerous, leading to more overall deaths.

Normally the decisions are quite sensible. But the moment any “terrorism” enters the picture it all goes out the window.

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stefan_yesterday at 7:13 PM

You don't have your head quite on, they had already taken off!

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Skunkletonyesterday at 6:23 PM

In the simplest possible terms: this is total bullshit security theatre. At no point has there ever been a bomb or even a bomb threat carried out via usb device names. There is absolutely no reason to even look at the names of Bluetooth devices on a flight.

umanwizardyesterday at 7:56 PM

A normal level of risk aversion? Are you being serious? They inconvenienced a few thousand passengers to save zero.

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