Obviously this can’t be answered with justice in a single comment, but here are some broad pointers that might help see the shape of the solution:
Israeli airport security focuses on behavioral cues, asking unpredictable questions, and profiling. A somewhat extreme threat model there, with much different base rates to account for (but also much lower traffic volume).
Reinforced cockpit doors address the hijackers with guns and knives scenarios, but are a fully general kind of a no-brainer control.
Good policework and better coordination in law enforcement are commonly cited, e.g. in the context of 9/11 hijackings, before anyone even gets to an airport.
In general, if the airlines had responsibility for security you would see a very different set of controls than what you get today, where it is an externality run by an organization with very strong “don’t do anything you can get blamed for” political incentives. In an ideal world, you could get an airline catering to paranoiacs who wanted themselves and their fellow passengers to undergo extreme screening, one for people who have done the math, and then most airlines in the middle would phase into nominal gate screening procedures that didn’t make them look to their customers that they didn’t care (which largely the math says that they shouldn’t).
A thought experiment: why is there no equivalent bus/train station security to what we have at airports? And what are the outcomes there?
Obviously this can’t be answered with justice in a single comment, but here are some broad pointers that might help see the shape of the solution:
Israeli airport security focuses on behavioral cues, asking unpredictable questions, and profiling. A somewhat extreme threat model there, with much different base rates to account for (but also much lower traffic volume).
Reinforced cockpit doors address the hijackers with guns and knives scenarios, but are a fully general kind of a no-brainer control.
Good policework and better coordination in law enforcement are commonly cited, e.g. in the context of 9/11 hijackings, before anyone even gets to an airport.
In general, if the airlines had responsibility for security you would see a very different set of controls than what you get today, where it is an externality run by an organization with very strong “don’t do anything you can get blamed for” political incentives. In an ideal world, you could get an airline catering to paranoiacs who wanted themselves and their fellow passengers to undergo extreme screening, one for people who have done the math, and then most airlines in the middle would phase into nominal gate screening procedures that didn’t make them look to their customers that they didn’t care (which largely the math says that they shouldn’t).
A thought experiment: why is there no equivalent bus/train station security to what we have at airports? And what are the outcomes there?
This is very interesting. Thanks for taking the time to explain :)