Ally and I got back from Mexico last night after spending most of the day traveling.  While on the planes traveling down to Mexico, and also while in Mexico I read F.A. Hayek's classic, The Road to Serfdom, and also started re-reading Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand.  It should be no surprise then, that an incident that happened while in the Atlanta airport seemed to bring the principles in those two books into sharp focus.

The initial leg of our flight home was from Cancun to Atlanta.  In Atlanta, we had to go through immigration, and also get our bags and go through customs, before rechecking our bags and heading off for the next leg of our trip (which happened to be to Detroit).  We were actually late leaving Cancun because of "diplomatic paperwork issues" according to the pilot.  That left us a tight turnaround to make our plane for Detroit when we finally landed in Atlanta.

We made it through immigration pretty quickly, and then headed down to the international baggage claim area to get our bags (we each had one).  Ally's came up reasonably fast... and mine didn't.  As bag after bag came up the conveyer belt, and time kept ticking away, we became increasingly worried that we'd miss our flight.  Ally had to work the next day, so I finally handed her the boarding passes she'd need and told her to go.  I told her I'd wait as long as I thought I could, and then I'd try to make the flight with my bag.  So she headed off through customs.

I then went over to talk to a very nice woman from Delta who was working in the baggage area and explained the situation.  She immediately called down to where the trucks were to find the status of the bags from our flight.  She then stood with me while we waited for the rest of the trucks to come, and called down occasionally.  She even went over to look for my bag at a different carrousel where a flight with a similar number had come from to see if it was there.  Finally she told me to go, and that they could put my bag through customs for me, and I'd get it the next day, but it was better to make my flight.

So I headed through customs.  Just as the woman at the customs desk said "Welcome Home", she then turned to me and said, "Wait, where's your baggage?"  I explained the situation, which caught the ear of her supervisor.  He then walked me back to the carrousel, asked another Delta employee if all the bags had dropped from our flight (he said no) and I was ordered to wait there for my bag.  I had 15 minutes left to catch my plane at that point (which included heading through security again).

The friendly Delta woman found me again, and waited with me, calling down occasionally again.  Only 1 truck was left, but it had multiple flights worth of bags so odds were mine wasn't on it.  Finally, with abut 5 minutes left, the carrousel stopped turning, she turned to me and said "GO!" and I ran back to customs where she waved to the customs folks and they let me through.

It was at this point that I thank God I'm in shape.  I sprinted with my back pack to the security check point, where I went to the TSA official at the head of the line and said "I have 4 minutes to catch my flight!" and he put me  in the "expedited" line.  At that point I called out to the 10 people ahead of me and said "I have 4 minutes to catch my flight, does anyone mind if I skip ahead?!"  They all moved over without a word and I moved to the head of the line, took off my shoes and put everything on the conveyer belt to go through X-Ray.

That's when the TSA official behind the X-Ray machine started openly laughing and mocking me in front of everyone, and to his coworker.  He kept taunting me with "Oh, poor baby is going to miss his plane.  Poor thing is worried he'll miss his plane.  Such a poor boy".  I wanted to shout "Fuck you lazy government bastard!"... but my goal at that point was to make my plane, not get flagged as needing extra scrutiny and a body cavity search.

I put my shoes back on without tying them, grabbed all my stuff and sprinted the half mile to my gate where it was just about to start boarding (thankfully it was 10 minutes late due to weather), where I met back up with Ally.

Ally had a slightly different experience.  When she got through customs fine and as she went to recheck her bag, she kept asking where she needed to put it.  She was directed by a TSA official to place it over in one pile, where she reconfirmed with the TSA official there that it was the correct place for her bag.  She then went through security to the gate, feeling uneasy about the whole thing because it all seemed so disorganized.

When we got to Milwaukee, my bag was there, and her's wasn't.

The whole experience brought into focus all the principles I was seeing in those books.  The Delta employee, trying to do a good job for the company she worked for, went the extra mile in helping me in the baggage area.  And though I don't know for sure, I am convinced that the reason I had my bag when I arrived was because it eventually came through, and she put it through customs so it would make the plane.

The TSA officials, who have no incentive to actually help any travelers, or make sure that air travel is smooth, not only did a poor job and lost Ally's bag, but were openly mocking of those they were supposed to be serving, instead of helping them.  A lost bag, or an offended traveler, doesn't effect the bottom line of the TSA nor his job, and so they may choose to do as they wish.

Of course, Delta is now extremely high on my list of good airlines because of this experience, and as you might expect, I have little respect for the TSA.  Unfortunately, I have no choice but to deal with the TSA every time I fly, no matter how horrible of a job they do.

"Nothing makes conditions more unbearable than the knowledge that no effort of ours can change them; and even if we should never have the strength of mind to make the necessary sacrifice, the knowledge that we could escape if we only stove hard enough makes many otherwise intolerable positions bearable" - F.A. Hayek