for hijackers in a hurry

The TSA, faced with shortages of qualified personnel and equipment (not to mention cold, hard cash), has diverted over half-a-million bucks, and pulled security officers, luggage x-rays, and bomb-sniffing machines from area airports to staff a lower Manhattan heliport that promises to shuttle passengers to the American Airlines terminal at JFK in just eight minutes. Starting at the end of March, shuttle patrons will be pre-screened at the heliport, and thus get to skip the lines at airport security, all for just $159 each way! (The story was all over the local news today, and the price has already gone up 20 bucks from when the service was first announced about a month ago.)

An official for US Helicopter, the company that will run the shuttles, said that the service will alleviate somewhat the long lines at airport security checks. . . he said this with a straight face. . . . Each copter will hold a maximum of eight passengers.

Since the TSA, in its infinite wisdom, already cut staff at New York area airports by 6.5 percent last summer, one has to wonder who the good folks at US Helicopter paid off. . . oh, I mean, one has to wonder to which campaigns they contributed.