Should Private Jets Have to Deal with the TSA Too?

One of the benefits of traveling by private jet is how you can avoid the huge hassle and indignity of airport security. We all know that titans of industry like the CEO’s of America’s car manufacturers can’t be bothered to take their laptops out of their cases and take off their expensive oxfords.

But the TSA and Homeland security has bad news for the rich guys up in the sky. They are proposing to extend the requirements like fingerprinting pilots, checking names against government watch lists and gasp, restricting what the rich flyers can bring on board the Gulfstream!

This idea will be fought hard by more than 10,000 air operators like NetJets, who are already having a terrible time. It seems that since the stock market melt down, there are more jets parked in storage than ever before. It is now the ín thing to sell your jet rather than flaunt it…and dozens of top companies have done just that.

Now this.  It seems that it’s the biggest jets that have raised the Homeland Security hackles. People like Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, who flies a tricked out Boeing 757, or the Google guys who fly a 1986 737. These are just as big as regular airliners, yet totally exempt from 9/11 security measures.

Like most things this also comes down to money. The TSA is saying that the security staff hiring and other costs will come out to about $44 per flight. But who pays?  AIrlines dón’t pay for the TSA, the government does. But they are trying to make the aircraft owners pay for their own security. This will be fought hard across airports and board rooms all year long.