Secure? You bet!

Last weekend, Erica and I flew from Boston to Newport News, Virginia on AirTran. We left on a Friday night, and after a busy week of work and wedding planning, I was dreading the air travel circus. I had a small roller bag with me, and rather than carry a second bag through security and onto the 717, which has tiny overhead bins, I decided to just toss my laptop into my suitcase. Originally, I intended to carry the bag onto the airplane, but after checking out the security line and realizing that I had no 1-quart Zip-locks with me, I decided to check the bag. The flight was direct, and my plan for the 90 minutes we'd be on board was to sleep. Besides, Erica was checking a bag, so there would be no extra delay at the other end. You know what happened next, of course. When I retrieved my bag in Newport News, it was a little lighter than expected. Open it up, and ... no laptop! Insert sinking feeling here.

I spent the weekend trying to figure out how to go about reporting my loss. AirTran's employees were very pleasant, both in person and on the phone, but they had no idea what should be done in the case of theft. By the end of the average conversation, I had to remind the person that I was talking to that no, I had not lost a bag, the bag had just lost some of its contents. Eventually, an AirTran customer service representative in Boston told me that I needed to fill out a pilferage report. It took the AirTran folks in Newport News a while to locate the required form, but eventually it was filed, with assurances that a thorough investigation would be performed. For good measure, I filed a police report with the Newport News police.

Upon returning to Boston, I stopped by the AirTran counter and met the customer service representative who had spoken to me on the phone. He was nice, but offered little hope that the laptop would show up. He did, however, tell me that after an investigation to rule out fraudulent reports, the airline usually compensates passengers for lost items. The next day, I spoke with a supervisor from Newport News who told me in no uncertain terms that, although my report had been filed, little action could be expected, and that the airline never pays for lost or damaged electronics, no matter what.

As you can guess, my employer wasn't super happy with me for losing the machine. Not only was it an expensive piece of company property, it also contained the source code for some of our software, and most of the email that I've sent and received in my 4+ years here. It turns out that our previous CEO's brother had a similar experience at Logan, which I read about in 2006 and, apparently, promptly forgot to take a lesson from. So now I'm doing software development on my 4 year old Dell desktop, trying to piece together what was lost, and calling every AirTran and TSA number that I can find.

What's really scary about all of this, loss of company secrets and person information notwithstanding, is that the person who took my laptop was working inside of the secure area at one of our nations' busiest airports (let's just assume that the theft happened at Logan, and not Newport News). If a TSA screener or AirTran baggage handler can open a bag, remove an item and take it out of the facility, what's to stop them from smuggling something dangerous into the airport? Neither AirTran nor TSA seem very concerned about the theft of electronics, which is apparently commonplace, so I guess it's OK with them that there are felons screening and handling luggage. I guess with security, as with everything else, you get what you pay for.