Instapundit (surprise, surprise) has pithy comments to make about the current state of airline service.

My first flight since the attack is coming up next Friday. This is interesting, both because it IS the first flight, and because while I (usually) travel a lot, this trip will be quite different — I’m leaving and getting back on different days than usual (thus, different crowds), and traveling for different reasons.

That said, I have been out to DIA twice since the attacks, and I’m not encouraged either by what I’ve seen at the ticket counters, the terminals, or in the reports from my fellow travelers. Airline employees have, if anything, gotten surlier.

I fully understand the need for a no-nonsense environment and serious demeanor, but you can be serious AND friendly, or at least courteous: I’m not stupid, and I can pretend that the guy behind the counter isn’t stupid (whether he happens to be or not) — he should be able to return the favor.

Asking what the current delay times are on incoming flights isn’t a bomb threat, champ — I’m just trying to plan my day.

Still, I wouldn’t complain, except that the changes that are causing this attitude of frustration aren’t really making things any better — a guy ACCIDENTLY carried a LOADED GUN onto his flight yesterday, in his briefcase, which he carried through two checkpoints without incident. Here’s a few thoughts:

• It’s a goddamn x-ray machine — you can see just as far into my laptap while it’s in the bag as you can when it’s not — you’re simply slowing down the line.
• Tweezers aren’t a weapon. They never have been. Neither are fingernail clippers.
• Limiting carry-on bags doesn’t have a damn thing to do with security — you’ve been trying to get me to check my suitcase for two years now — you don’t like it, but that’s not about security.

People who travel frequently aren’t sheep about this stuff — most know how the system works and can recognize that some of the new practices are essentially “make them think added frustration means added security”, dealing with their reaction pisses off employees, because they aren’t stupid people — they live and work in this environment, and they can see as well as we can how much is actually security and how much is fluff.

It’d make me grumpy too.