Security breaches at hub airports are the worst

Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) (wikimedia commons photo)

The "hub" model of airline operations is commonplace, but it's a double-edged sword from a security perspective. Passengers are screened at the "spoke" airport, but then can roam the hub freely since they're "in the system," ostensibly in what TSA oddly calls the "sterile" area. News that a man entered the "sterile" area at EWR on Saturday raised fifteen kinds of hell as an entire terminal in a hub airport had to be emptied of passengers:

(more after the jump)

A man who caused a security breach at Newark Liberty International Airport, causing major delays and grounding flights for six hours, left about 20 minutes after he walked the wrong way through a security checkpoint, the Transportation Security Administration said Monday.

Someone picking up a passenger told an officer guarding the exit that he thought he saw a man enter through the doors Sunday, TSA spokeswoman Ann Davis said. TSA reviewed surveillance video before sweeping the airport, she said.

A six-hour delay at Continental's big east coast hub is just a mess. As it is, EWR is one of the three major airports serving New York City. Getting in and out of that airspace is ugly on a good day, much less when you have to get long-delayed flights up in the air.

Events like this also have international consequences:

At Oslo's Gardermoen airport, a Continental flight to Newark that was scheduled to leave at 11 a.m. local time was delayed at least six hours. Passengers sat on suitcases and chatted among themselves as they waited in a check-in line that barely moved for one-and-a-half hours.

And unlike my exciting pre-holiday experience courtesy of KLM, this is one the airline can dodge responsibiltiy for. TSA actions are up there with the weather on the list of things that take the airlines off the hook when it comes to compensating passengers for delays.

It's hard to blame TSA for this sort of thing, either. People are stupid, and it's hard to tell the stupid ones from the malicious ones, so you really do have to clean out the terminal.