An Orwellian Vision of Air Travel

An Orwellian vision of air travel: increased fear-driven security procedures make air-travel ever more difficult and uncomfortable.

As current, fear-driven security procedures increase, travelling by air will be even more difficult than today. It might not be enough to leave all liquids, arms, blades, scissors, and lighters at home as human bodies may pose an even bigger risk for flight security. Bodies can burst into flames, plastic explosives can be swallowed or surgically implanted, and nerve gas agents can be easily hidden in any luggage. Some mighty explosives contain the same material as human body. Imagination is the only limit how those assets can be used as they have to be boarded in any case. If paranoia and fear of death escalates further, the following Orwellian vision might be inescapable. Sit back and enjoy the ride.

When you enter the airport, your head will be shaved because you might carry explosives, poison gas agents or biological weapons in your hair. You will also be required to show a medical certificate proving that you are in an acceptable physical and mental condition for flying. This includes testing against all possible mental disorders, and making sure that your physical condition does not endanger the safety of other passengers. Your IQ has to be less than 110, and more than 90 to make sure that you are not too stupid and not too bright to do anything unpredictable.

When checking in your luggage, you can either choose to ship your luggage by sea freight, or have it burnt by airport services. The best way is to leave all your luggage at home as nothing will be allowed on board. Before entering the airplane you will be put to sleep and connected to a live support system for minimizing all possible risks. Your clothes will be removed and burnt for the same reason as your hair, and the contents of your ass and stomach will be emptied. During the flight nothing should happen as all the passengers will be tightly asleep. If anything should happen, the captain has a panic button at his disposal in the cockpit. If he pushes the button, all passengers will be terminated and their bodies disposed. This has to be done for the sake of flight crew security, and to protect people on the ground.

When you will wake up in your destination, you’ll be wearing hospital clothes. The next half a year you’ll have to stay in quarantine before you can return to the outside world. This is necessary, for the officials want to make sure that you are not contaminated by any known or unknown disease.

Bye-bye weekend trips, business visits and one-month holidays. The quarantine actually makes any air travel impossible because of the time consumed. Nobody will fly any more, so that is perhaps the best security procedure ever invented. And if, no matter what, you really have to travel and invest a half a year of your time, there will always remain the risk of being terminated during the flight or in quarantine. Your life has no value compared to the risk you pose to other people.