Unions are going to love that ...

Are you looking for a little something extra?

I envision a huge circular room with 600 doors arrayed around its perimeter...behind each of which waits a crotch fondler.

"Not so fast, you brown people and Mooslims. Go through that door over there marked "Supplemental Security Screening" for your friendly 'grip-n-grin."

DRTFA

But all I thought of was the self check out lines at the supermarket, I love them and use them all the time. But, ever notice that 90%+ of the people using them are under 40? If people can't handle doing that themselves, I doubt they can do it in an airport. Hell, how many of you have stood behind people who have yet to realize they have to empty pockets, remove belts and shoes and NO FLUIDS...

Alternatively the airport of the dystopian future that awaits us will probably involve more and more 'security' less and less service and large variety of innovative ways to part you from your luggage and money.

In fact I can see a future where it is strongly discouraged to take anything with you on a plane. Between the near certainty that your luggage will be lost and security confiscating anything that might be turned into some sort of weapon from your carry-on, it will be easier to just buy new stuff at your destination. You don't carry smartphones or anything else electronic on a plane because everyone from the TSA to the RIAA will want to have full access to your files if you go through a checkpoint. Data will be stored an 'secure' cloud an accessed from disposable mobile devices at your destination.

Since you get strip-searched anyway before you board it will soon become customary to fly almost naked. In the name of security further indignities will be heaped upon you and because airlines want to save money they will make your flight as uncomfortable as possible. The end result might that passangers get penned in like lifestock or are individually manacled to an overhead rail to force them to spend the entire flight standing upright for their own safety.

The only way to travel in comfort and style will be by private airplane.

Passengers will react to flying becoming more and more uncomfortable by trying to avoid it, but the industry will start a great lobbying and marketing effort to oppose it. Competing modes of transportation like high speed rail will be assassinated by mercenary politicians and advertising campaign will make you believe that not flying regularly makes you a member of the poor underclass and possibly unpatriotic. Businesses might turn more and more to virtual meetings, but it will be an uphill battle. What losses the airline industry does have due to dwindling customers will be made up by increasing fees, decreasing expenditures for safety and bailouts from the government. Towards the end airline travel will be extremely expensive despite being heavily subsidized and so inherently unsafe, horribly humiliating and inexplicably uncomfortable that people will have to be almost forced to participate.

In short if you want to picture of the airport of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face forever.

The airport of the future will also have ticket prices 100x what you're paying today due to rising fuel costs.

I'm old enough to remember smoking on the plane and putting my lighter in the coat pocket that also contained my pocket knife, Then, I met my family at the gate...

TSA Pinup - Miss October

Waht? The TSA hasn't been disbanded yet?

Shut the agency down. Fire everyone; they can easily get jobs working in fetish clubs, based on their extensive experience at the TSA.

Next, transfer every single DHS employee to a new facility to be built on Johnston Atoll, and never let them retire. Or have vacations.

Meh, I'd rather rock up to the train station jump on a meglev and travel 800 odd miles in 2 - 3 hours. If I'm not crossing an ocean why would I fly in your, utopian, future?

I like how the article treats NFC like it's farking far-future tech. By 2014 most/all new phones will probably have it except for the very rare dumb phone, at least in the US..

namatad: not being snarky, really curious as to when you think this will happen.
otherwise you are just being vague and chicken little

Do you think I'm a psychic or something? Look, if you think fuel prices are going to remain constant and NOT increase, you have to be intentionally avoiding looking at historical trends.

MrEricSir: namatad: not being snarky, really curious as to when you think this will happen.
otherwise you are just being vague and chicken little

Do you think I'm a psychic or something? Look, if you think fuel prices are going to remain constant and NOT increase, you have to be intentionally avoiding looking at historical trends.

While you're right about one thing there is a maximum price for something like fuel - at some point it becomes economically viable for me to stay home and farm kelp/algae/grass clippings/nose hair and convert it into diesel fuel - on massive scales it's probably not much more than 2x current prices.

Mugato: Let me know when they have passenger vessels like in The Fifth Element. You climb in a bunk, they flip a switch and you're out cold for the whole trip. Would eliminate almost all of the problems with air travel.

they already have that, I call it five rapid shots of cheap scotch at the concourse bar.

Good thing I don't ever feel the need to fly anywhere.

blackheart666: Good thing I don't ever feel the need to fly anywhere.

That's what shrooms are for.

This is where travel needs to be, say technologists who also insist that their wizardry, if employed universally, could solder together the jagged edges of the industry.

We have sufficient technology right now, we don't really need much more. What we are lacking, however, are intelligent people at the top and intelligent people on the ground running things. What we have right now are the Three Stooges that are reading from a script. They are baffled by the slightest thing that's not on the script. As a result we get 'dangerous' cupcakes because the icing is a 'gel'. We get 'dangerous' snow-globes confiscated, even if they are drained of any liquid, simply because they could, at some point, be re-filled. We get told that all checked luggage must be unlocked OR be locked with a TSA 'approved' lock.... which ends up getting cut off anyway.

Dumbest thing EVER is screening the pilots. They are already in the cockpit. They are already at the controls and in control of the aircraft. And they are, in some cases, already armed (and if they don't have a firearm there is usually a fire-axe handily nearby). Given those facts, what the fark are you screening them for?

The security theater needs to stop. FatherHomeland Security needs to be disbanded. The TSA needs to go back to being WalMart greeters. The Air Marshals need to be given the opportunity to get their self-respect back. And the airlines and airports need to grow some balls and tell the feds to fark off.

/TSA also needs to stop steeling stuff from peoples luggage and planting drugs on them
//haven't flown in 10 years but have driven 5 or 6 round trips between FL and NJ
///wishes that rail was a better option... you can get a package from Jacksonville to Miami via rail but not a person... WTF?

DigitalCoffee: haven't flown in 10 years

So thanks for your expert opinion.

Barakku: I like how the article treats NFC like it's farking far-future tech. By 2014 most/all new phones will probably have it except for the very rare dumb phone, at least even in the US..

FTFY.

jaytkay: DigitalCoffee: haven't flown in 10 years

So thanks for your expert opinion.

I'd wager that my opinion is far from being expert, but thanks anyway for the compliment.

Marcus Aurelius: [www.thetruthaboutcars.com image 450x328]
See ya.

As a wannabe-pilot 99%er, I wish that process wasn't prohibitively expensive :(

Don't Troll Me Bro!: FTA: .... Your biometric information, picked up by automated surveillance cameras....

Behold, the endgame.

It's a big DARPA funded project. They can get iris prints on the fly from concealed cameras. Damndest thing you ever saw.

What flight with no baggage and check-in problems may look like:



/hot like the cannonball flight attendants must be

Sounds like AirNZ domestic.

Walk in, use the little hub to scan a barcode on your phone, press a couple touch buttons, "did you pack your bags?" etc. Boarding pass autoprints. Drop your suitcase off on the conveyor belt, stick your hand luggage through the x-ray.

Board your plane.

Here is where the TSA is doing it wrong: if their employees all looked like Charlize Theron then I would be encouraging them to fondle me.

_{/"B b but have you checked here?"}

you mean like... before the baby boomers turned air travel from a luxury to a 1980's NYC subway train?

HotIgneous Intruder: I envision a huge circular room with 600 doors arrayed around its perimeter...behind each of which waits a crotch fondler.

Apples HQ?