Patirick, I actually enjoy your harping and agree with everything you say about the TSA. I used to be a pilot slogging my way through the process too. But remember one very important reality. Even as pilots, our identity to TSA "strangers" is not reliable yet and so they are forced to mis-trust everyone. Until you get the TWIC (Transportation Workers Idenitfication Card) which promises to be accepted by the system as a valid check of your true identity, then you'll be going through this for a long time. Me? I'm "retired" and no longer have to suffer the idignity of being a suspected terrorist 777 Captain.

Oh, and one more thing. Most of your audience out there and probably the TSA would be shocked to know that beside that serrated knife in your possesion while flying the airplane, there is a medieval weapon of destruction mounted on the wall of every US airliner cockpit -- the crash axe. Patrick, the next time you go tete a tete with the TSA, ask them if they want to go out to your airplane and confiscate that as well.

Patrick, we can't assume that the airlines are out of the financial woods yet. We still have a collapsed pricing system, the balance sheets of all the airlines are still in terrible shape exactly because the ticket prices, as you say, are back at 1980 levels. That is not a good thing. Until we have a stable revenue environment for all the carriers, including Southwest, all the other discussions about ATC structure and such are moot.

Fuel prices are down now for a while but it won't be long until the carriers bleed money again and we have to find a way to set a policy that will give them predictalbe returns on investment.

David, sorry, but you couldn't be more wrong.

Let's see. From 1938 to 1978 the regulated airline industry as a whole was in the black by about a billion dollars. Even despite the carriers that occasionally lost money, the whole industry had an economic profit after forty years.

From 1978 to 2008, three decades of de-regulation, the industry as a whole is now 35 billion dollars in the red. Not just from one year but for the culmination of the entire three decades. The auto industry doesn't even have that kind of terrible performance.

Hmmm...regulated, profitable, de-regulated, losses. Is there a relationship here?

If you look once again to history, the airlines actally started out deregulated in the 20's and 30's. The reason Congress regulated it was because the financial performance then was what you see today -- bankruptcies, chaos, and a few more crashes. You can even overlay headlines of the time right over financial airline stories of today and need not change a word.

Hero or not, airline pilots and crew have been under financial attack for decades now from their companies. Sully and thousands of other fine professionals have been viewed as annoying "cost problems" by acccounting departments of every airline operating in the US.

It's only when an event like the Hudson ditching that these bean counters are reminded of what the true value of quick thinking professionals do to protect the public and yes, the bottom line.

The liabilities resting in the hands of both the Captain and the First Officer on each and every flight exceed 100 million dollars if you include not just the price of the airplane but the potential law suits that always result from crashes. And yet the airline companies continue to grab more pay away, terminate pensions, raise contributions to benefits, etc, etc. Some of that is just a sign of the times where all companies are doing this to us all but rewarding Sully and the other aircrew employees with 35 and 40 percent pay cuts is downright immoral. And yet Sully and all still do a professional job and treat their passengers right.

We should remember this the next time we excitedly buy a 49 dollar ticket. It's not our obligation purposely buy higher priced tickets but it is the companies' obligation to treat professionals accordingly.

By the way, as a qualified pilot, I can answer a couple of questions out there left hanging. Screens on intakes to ward off birds? First, the airflow disruption would prevent the engine from developing enough thrust but before that, the screen would collapse into the engine and destroy it long before reaching takeoff power.

And as to why with a two engine failure only the left side instruments remain working? Instruments draw a great deal of electrical power. There is only a small ram air turbine providing power to the whole airplane since the engine driven generators are out or in some cases just a battery. To conserve that power for all the other demands as well, flight controls, critical lights, etc, the system is designed to power down to bare essentials. The Captain's side in the cockpit is consider critical but not the first officers and so it powers down to just the left side.

Hope this helps.

Patrick don't forget the other essential that keeps airplanes aloft. Money.