Rusty Saber: Airline safety, food appear to be improving

Joe McAdoo is former chairman of the communication department at Drury University.

Airline safety is a serious concern for everyone. The closer one gets to climbing aboard an airliner, the greater the concern. Having recently made a couple of long round-trip flights, I developed a keen interest in safe takeoffs, landings and everything in between. Terrorism threats have made flying a more intense experience than it once was.

After my recent encounters with a variety of airplanes and airports, I've concluded that almost everyone whose job it is to make flying as safe and tolerable as possible is doing good work.

Airports, including Springfield's, seem to be staffed with people who know what they are doing. Serious efforts are being made to carefully inspect luggage before being tagged and sent on to the airplane.

I would rather undergo the slight aggravation of waiting for the inspection than to learn in mid-flight that it should have been inspected. I know there is no way to be absolutely certain that some imbecile hasn't sneaked a bomb on the airplane, but a much tougher and more thorough effort is being made to find it, with a minimum of delays.

Passenger security checks aren't as superficial as they once were. Granted, there is the occasional story about someone getting through security carrying a prohibited item. It takes passengers longer than it once did to pass through the more thorough security checks. But compared to me, they race through.

Vice President Dick Cheney and I have the same model of surgically implanted defibrillator, which comes in handy should our hearts stop beating. Functional though my machine may be, it can't go through the electronic security system. It would set off alarms and might even become deprogrammed, which would eventually be harmful to my health.

The vice president will be whisked through security by Secret Service agents, but not me. Security regulations require me to be hand searched.

When they say hand searched, they aren't kidding around; they mean searched. The various men who have searched me have all been well trained and thorough, but courteous.

Following a head-to-toe frisking, there is no doubt it's safe for me to go aboard. I'm glad they do it. As a passenger, I want to be certain that no one boards with prohibited materials. Search away!

You may have heard that the National Transportation Safety Board believes air travel would be safer if airliners weighed passengers to know how much weight the airplanes are carrying.

I don't know how this might be accepted by weight-conscious people.

Thus far, I haven't heard whether or not an airline might turn away passengers deemed to be too heavy. Surely not.

The U.S. Mint can't print enough money to pay airline ticket agents to tell people they can't get on an airplane because they are too fat. Weighing passengers may not be an idea whose time has come.

It appears to me that the airlines have developed a new appreciation for passengers doing business with them, and do all they can to make flying as comfortable as can be, considering that passengers are crammed together for long periods of time. I may be getting carried away, but I even believe the meals are better.

Oh, the food still tastes like cardboard, but tastier cardboard.