You're Flying Where?

So that's rather interesting. A slight flurry of consternation over the airing of a YouTube video taken by a concerned British traveller witnessing two veiled women accompanied by their male chaperone, breezing by airport security and passing through a boarding gate at a Montreal airport wearing niqabs, to board an Air Canada plane. The staff whose job it was to ensure that the women's faces would be uncovered for scrutiny appeared to have simply overlooked safety measures.

These are, after all, in light of how airplanes have been used in the last decade, quite important safety measures. The flying public has been assured time and again that the airlines and government agencies are looking out for their safety. Yet Air Canada staff are either complacent enough or too workplace harried, or worried that they'll be bullied by people like the niqab-wearing women's chaperone that they wave unverified passengers through.

Knowing this would make a lot of the travelling public wary of travelling that carrier. One might assess. Passenger screening is of ultimate importance. There have been instances when men have dressed in face-covering burqas to disguise their purpose. And successfully carrying out their terrorist missions, as a result. Rules in passenger travel and safety are really not meant to be broken. Through intimidation, or goodwill, or any other reason.

Transport Canada insists that these rules be followed. And the WestJet and Air Canada representatives both reassure that they're serious about following these required identification procedures. The House of Commons public safety committee decided to turn down a request from an MP to study airline safety, however. Don't worry, be happy about your flying adventures...

Yet Shelly Glover, who requested that study, claims "Canadians have voiced very clearly that this is disturbing to them. This is of concern, and I want to alleviate their fears." On the other hand, the airlines and travel agencies across the country claim that there have been no slow-downs in business, and no cancellations as a result of the video and what it portrayed. Aren't people amazingly trusting?

"July was a record for how full the planes were, so people are definitely travelling", advised a spokesman for WestJet Airlines Ltd. Oh, well that's all right then. Isn't it? Better let things be as they are. Don't provoke any backlashes. And remember all the funding that has gone into improving airline security; new, invasive electronic devices. Vetting passengers, what they're carrying, that kind of thing. And try not to linger on the thought of airline personnel waving through uninspected passengers.

It'll only give heartburn. No attendant, after all, wants to have "racist" hissed at them for insisting that rules be obeyed and faces uncovered. And people are so sensitively politically correct, that being labelled "anti-Muslim" isn't seen as a smear, but a label to be avoided at all costs. And there's always the possibility that someone will be hauled before a Human Rights Tribunal on charges of racism, right?

Um, right.