David Neeleman Quotes

I'm confident that the terrorists are aware that from the curb to the cockpit we've got additional security measures that didn't exist a couple of years ago.

Why we cannot build a system like El Al to be proactive. Why do we have only to react? The shoe bomber - reaction? Take off your shoes. The Nigerian - the body scanner is a result of the Nigerian guy.

Airport security exists to guard us against terrorist attacks.

Now we are using the body scanner to scan the pilots. They became the dangerous people of this country?

Of course, you always have to be concerned about hijacking. But with the measures that are in place right now, I'd say that probably the airways are as safe as they've been in a good number of years.

Each and every one of the security measures we implement serves an important goal: providing safe and efficient air travel for the millions of people who rely on our aviation system every day.

The bottom line is how do we best provide for the security of the traveling public in light of a determined enemy who is adept at constructing well-designed, well-concealed devices which would not show up in a walk-through metal detector? We're trying to employ the best technology to identify any possible threat.

We need to put undercover security armed people at the curbside of the terminal with the uniform of policemen. We need to protect the terminal. We need to protect the security checkpoint, the gate, the aircraft, the perimeter.

The bottom line is, if somebody doesn't go through proper security screening, they're not going to go on the flight.

We want to be sensitive to people's concerns about privacy about their personal being and things, while ensuring that everybody on every flight has been properly screened.

You can't imagine a world, quite frankly, without a safe and secure aviation system. And so our job is to really focus on that, and what we need to do to keep it safe and secure.

I feel gigantic affection for all of Homeland Security at airports.

Now, a lot of what we are doing right now, quite frankly, is because of what happened on Christmas. Many of the things were kind of in the works. We were already planning, for example, the purchase and deployment of advanced imaging technology. You call them body scanners. We call them AITs (Advanced Imaging Technologies).

Our pat-down approach is very similar to what is being utilized in Europe and, as we know, around the world. It's even much more thorough in other parts of the world.

I take four planes a week, honestly. You know, I am for intelligence screening.

How many terrorist attacks has TSA thwarted? We're never going to know the true answer to that question.

There were precisely two groups of people who desperately wanted airport security to be browbeaten into giving suspicious passengers a pass: terrorists and Democrats.

It may be annoying, but the rash of hijackings by Connecticut WASP girls surely explains the time-consuming - but still somehow completely useless - examination of my personal effects. We all have to make sacrifices for airline safety.

The TSA's airport body scanners have been shown to be so ineffective, the Homeland Security chairman suggested using traditional metal detectors. While LaGuardia will continue to just have a scarecrow dressed as a cop.

The reason we are doing these types of pat downs and using the advanced imagery technology is trying to take the latest intelligence and how we know al Qaeda and affiliates want to hurt us, they want to bring down whether it is passenger air craft or cargo aircraft.

There is only so much negotiating and maneuvering that can be done while the aircraft is under siege in mid-air. Therefore, the best way to put a stop to hijacking is by having high levels of security implemented by qualified and trained personnel both on the ground and in the air.

Congress has greatly tightened the loopholes terrorists can use to harm Americans. We need to do more. We need controls immediately on what forms of ID are adequate to board planes and enter secure sites.

I flew on Air Force Two for eight years, and now I have to take off my shoes to get on an aeroplane.

And so we try to address those concerns in every way possible, recognizing, again, in the final analysis, everybody on that flight wants to be assured with the highest level of confidence that everybody else on that flight has been properly screened, and including me and you and everybody.

The episode of the 'shoe bomber,' Richard Reid, has suddenly meant more feet being bared at airports than at the average Hindu temple. My solution has been to replace my customary lace-up Oxfords with a pair of slip-on loafers when I fly. Generals are always fighting the last war, and security screeners are the same.