If you’ve been watching pilot unions tell their members to decline to go through the body scanner when they go through security, you’re probably feeling concerned about your safety as well, right? The good news is that there don’t appear to be any real safety implications for the casual traveler and it’s unlikely to be problematic for pilots either. My guess is that this is more of a backlash against the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) rules than anything else. While there are plenty of privacy and annoyance factors to consider, it seems like safety isn’t a major concern.

Much of this has to stem from recent TSA moves. Now, if you are at a checkpoint where there is a backscatter, full body scanner and you are asked to go through it, you have the right to say no. If you say no, however, then you will be subject to a full body massage. The TSA has recently changed the pat-down procedure so that the front of the hand will be used instead of the back and the hands may wander closer to, uh, sensitive areas. In other words, go ahead and turn down the body scan but you’ll then be groped. It’s not a great option.

Pilot unions have now come out saying that their members should avoid body scanners, or what is now being referred to as Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT), due to concerns about radiation. This is an x-ray machine, after all. Captain Dave Bates, president of Allied Pilots Association which represents American’s pilots, says in a letter that pilots should decline the AIT and instead opt for a pat-down. He then says it’s unprofessional to receive a pat-down in public in uniform so pilots should ask for a private screening. If that means that the pilot is unable to be ready to fly on time, then that’s ok. Safety first.

Now Mike Cleary, head of the US Airline Pilots Association at US Airways, has taken it even further. He says that crewmembers should have a witness with them during the pat-down process. After that, pilots need to “evaluate their fitness for duty. As has been determined, there is a wide range of possibilities once you submit to a private screening, and the results can be devastating.”

This is obviously turning into a huge issue, but why? The pilots say that the issue is due to radiation exposure, but much of this seems to be primarily an objection to pilots being subjected to screening at all. The pilots have long argued, and rightly-so in my opinion, that screening on-duty pilots is ridiculous. After all, they are the ones with the locked cockpit door behind them. If they want to do damage, they don’t need to smuggle something on the plane to do it. They control the plane. There are issues with ensuring that someone is actually a pilot and that they are on-duty, but those are solvable. Flying pilots shouldn’t need to be screened, so now the unions are, in my opinion, putting out these directives in order to try to bring some urgency to the issue.

But should you be concerned about your own safety here from radiation? I don’t think so. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has put out a lengthy letter to the University of California regarding concerns stated by Dr John Holdren about the potentially harmful effects of these machines. I’ve read through the letter and I’d say I understand half of it at best. So maybe smarter people than I can help translate, but I get the main points of it. As Kai Ryssdal says, let’s do the numbers.

The established standard for radiation exposure for the general public from man-made, non-medical sources is 1,000 µSv (microsieverts) per year. One microsievert is one millionth of a sievert, and if you’re familiar with the now-outdated measure of rem, a sievert is 1/100 of a rem, so these are tiny little numbers.

Since it’s not possible to control all sources of radiation exposure, the general rule is to try to keep it under 250 µSv per year from sources that can be controlled. For a radiation-emitting machine to be considered “general use,” as the backscatter machines are required to be by TSA, it has to emit 1,000 times less than the 250 µSv limit for each use, or 0.25 µSv. The backscatter machines have passed that in every test. In fact, it appears that the machines actually emit 0.05 µSv per use. That means that a person could go through the machine 13 times a day for every day of the year and still not have exceeded the limit.

But there was also concern that since the exposure is primarily focused on the skin, that could be a problem area even if the general exposure was not. According to the letter, the annual dose limit for skin exposure is 50,000 µSv per year. Even if the machines emitted the required 0.25 µSv (higher than what it actually is), it would take nearly 250 exposures per day to reach the skin limit. That doesn’t appear to be a problem.

Pilots are unhappy because they already face higher doses of radiation from constantly flying. The higher altitude for longer periods of time means more exposure. The FAA estimates that someone flying 1,000 block hours between DC and LA at 35,000 feet in a year would receive a dose of 5,000 µSv. Let’s say that means the person took 200 flights (at an average block time of 5 hours). If he had to go through the AIT each time, it would add only 10 µSv, a downright tiny number in the scheme of things.

Bottom line? If pilots are really concerned about radiation exposure, they should stop flying. The additional amount from the AIT machines is negligible when compared to what they get while in the air.

And remember, if you’re taking a couple trips to year to see grandma, the exposure is truly almost nothing. The exposure to radiation, I mean. The exposure to TSA agents resulting in humiliation is a whole different story.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is at it once again. In a typical reactive move, you can now no longer bring printer cartridges over 16 ounces on an airplane. If this weren’t so sad, it would be downright comical. There has to be a better way to do this.

You all know about the recent terrorist plot, right? Terrorists in Yemen shipped bombs via cargo aircraft to the US. It’s unclear what the ultimate target was, but it is clear that the goal was to blow something up. It didn’t happen. These bombs were disguised in large printer cartridges. Did we really need to guess what the TSA reaction would be?

As of now, cargo from Yemen has been banned completely to the US, and the feds threw in Somalia as well just for kicks. And yes, printer cartridges over 16 ounces are banned. But get this, they’re only banned on domestic flights and international flight inbound to the US. Really? What a pain.

Now, I can’t imagine there are too many people trying to lug around 16 ounce printer cartridges; these are not the ones you find in your standard inkjet. But they are out there and now you can’t ship them. But, uh, how exactly is the TSA going to enforce this? Let’s say you’re traveling to London. It should be fine to carry your cartridge, right? But not if you go to Detroit. Remember, you go through the same security checkpoint as everyone else, so does this mean that the TSA is going to start enforcing rules by destination? Sounds like just what we need to slow things down even further. And how are they going to pick out a boxy-piece of plastic on the x-ray anyway?

Let’s not ask questions and just realize that we are now safer. How? Well, the next time someone tries to ship a bomb in a printer cartridge, there’s now a small chance the TSA would actually detect it. Just forget about the fact that it’s unlikely they’re going to try to use printer cartridges again anyway. We can, of course, all sleep easy at night because this is clearly going to keep us safe.

I mean, there’s no chance that terrorists will just laugh and move on to something else. Knowing that the TSA will just ban anything that the people try to use as weapons, you’d think that the next bomb will be in a toothbrush, or maybe in a razor. Next thing you know, Schick will try to put razor-bombs in Gillette razors to see if it can get only Gillette razors banned.

Of course, the terrorists (and no, I’m not calling Schick a terrorist) could go too far. If they try to put a bomb in a laptop, then business travelers around the world will revolt. Just imagine what would happen if the TSA tried to ban laptops . . .

By now you all know that a Qantas A380 had an engine failure last week that caused enough concern that the airline grounded the entire fleet. Here we are on Monday and the fleet is still not flying, so a lot of people are stuck, waiting for Qantas to get its act together. The airline isn’t giving much information, so the best advice to give is this . . . have patience.

In case you haven’t seen it, one of the engines on the A380 had what’s called an uncontained failure, meaning that pieces came out of the engine and threatened other parts of the airplane. While some flew harmlessly to the ground, others shot up and punctured the wing. Take a look:

As you can imagine, that’s not good. But the airplane flew just fine, the crew dumped fuel, and everyone was safe in the end. Still, there was something so concerning to Qantas that it decided to ground the entire fleet. It remains grounded today and Qantas has apparently found more problems on other airplanes so it could be a few more days.

If you’re booked on an A380, what should you do? Well, keep an eye on flight status updates on the Qantas website. Those seem to be accurate, but just because the flight is running doesn’t mean you’ll actually be on it.

I was trying to help someone this weekend who had flown from Chicago to LA, ready to connect to an A380 on Thursday night after the incident. When she arrived, she was told her flight would be going 24 hours later, and they would put her up for the night. She tried to get more information by calling Qantas, but the wait times were excessively long and she gave up. She went for her flight the next day but when she got there, she was told she wouldn’t be going.

See, the A380 is the largest airplane in the Qantas fleet, so when they find a 747 to substitute for it, they can’t get everyone on that airplane. Apparently they never bothered to tell this to the person I was helping, and when she showed up, they said she wasn’t on it and had no idea when she would be going. Very helpful, right?

Things were a bit more complicated for her, because she was on a codeshare with American Airlines. She had the American confirmation number but not the Qantas one. So if you’re flying, make sure you have the Qantas confirmation number so you can look up your status online. That undoubtedly could have saved some trips to the airport for some people.

If you’re hoping for more specific updates from Qantas, you’re probably out of luck. The only thing Qantas has done on Facebook is link to its website. The @QantasUSA Twitter account has had limited information, but it took more than 24 hours before Qantas even started responding to people via that channel. Your best bet is probably to just rely on what you find on the Qantas website. If you’re feeling stranded, we can, of course, help you via Cranky Concierge.

It’s unfortunate that Qantas’ response has left a lot to be desired here. With any luck, the airplanes will be back in the air within the next week, but we don’t know that for sure just yet. And what if you’re flying an A380 on another airline?

At this point, it looks like the issue is engine-related. Qantas uses a Rolls-Royce engine on its A380s, and Singapore is the only other airline that uses that engine. So if you’re flying on a Singapore A380, you have nothing to worry about just yet. The airline has inspected its airplanes and continues to fly them. But if something is found that requires immediate assistance, it could cause disruptions. On the other hand, if you’re on Emirates, Lufthansa, or Air France, those airlines use different engines and should be unaffected. My mistake, Lufthansa also uses the Rolls engines, however it has very few and likely has the ability to substitute other aircraft without nearly as much pain.

How Southwest Measures the Success of “Bags Fly Free” – BNET Headwinds
Last week at Media Day, Southwest got into survey details on how it measures success of Bags Fly Free.

Airline reviews: Find out if an airline is any good – Budget Travel
Sean over at Budget Travel asked me how to find if an airline is legit or not. Here’s my response.

Southwest: Why It’s Promoting No Change Fees and Its Web Site – BNET Headwinds
Now that Bags Fly Free is working, here’s what’s next. From Media Day, of course.

In the Trenches: The Stress of Exhibiting at a Conference – Intuit Small Business Blog
I have started blogging about my experience as a small businessperson at the Intuit Small Business Blog. My first post was on exhibiting at a conference.

Election 2010: Airlines Lose Key Merger Opponent in the House with Oberstar Defeat – BNET Headwinds
Rep Oberstar, the constant airline merger opponent, has lost in the race for re-election. That’s good and bad news for airlines.

Southwest Tells Airports to Keep Costs Under Control – BNET Headwinds
Airport costs are skyrocketing, and I asked Southwest about that during a one-on-one interview with EVP Bob Jordan. He said airports do need to keep costs under control.

Qantas Grounds A380s After Engine Failure: There’s More to This Story – BNET Headwinds
The big news at the end of the week was Qantas grounding the A380 fleet. There has to be more to this.

Qantas A380: A History of Problems With the Rolls-Royce Trent 900 Engines – BNET Headwinds
This isn’t the first problem with the Trent 900 engine on the A380. Not sure what’s related at this point, but it’s worth taking a look.

I’m still catching up on news from last week, and one thing I meant to touch on was JetBlue’s announcement that it will fly from Long Beach to Anchorage next summer. I’ve received several emails from people who think this is crazy and that it makes no sense, but I think it’s a great move. The thought of a growing low fare carrier presence in Alaska must make Alaska Airlines nervous, but there’s a lot of room for lower fares in Anchorage during the summer.

Anchorage is a really unique market. During the summer, hordes of tourists go up to enjoy 20 hours of sun and mild temperatures. In addition, boatloads of people take one way cruises between Alaska and either Seattle or Vancouver, so they need flights, at least one way. But during the winter, the tourists stay away, and only those who live there or who have business up there bother making the trip.

Anchorage has, for the most part, been the domain of Alaska Airlines, and Seattle is the main jumping off point for service to Anchorage. Looking at a random Tuesday in January, Alaska has 12 flights a day. And that’s during the off season. Try that same Tuesday in July? There are 19 daily flights. In fact, there is hourly service from 8a to 10p, sometimes even half-hourly in there. There’s no question the demand is there.

And those 19 daily flights are filled to the brim even with the insane number of summer seasonal destinations that other airlines use to siphon traffic away. But other airlines aren’t the only ones getting in on the seasonal boom. Alaska has seasonal destinations as well. For example, LAX sees two daily flights during the summer while there are none during the winter.

But of all those flights, including seasonal ones, do you know how many are on low fare airlines? Eleven flights per week. Yep, Frontier has a daily flight from Denver and Sun Country flies four times a week from Minneapolis. That’s it. So the bigger question for me is . . . why is it taking so long for low fare airlines to try this out?

Is it a technical issue? No. Unlike Hawai’i, you don’t need extended overwater capability for Anchorage flying. Is it the distance? That’s probably a big piece of it. Seattle to Anchorage is nearly 1,500 miles, or about the same distance as from Phoenix to Chicago. Let’s say you’re AirTran and you want to go from Atlanta – that’s 1,000 miles further than going from Boston to San Diego. It probably doesn’t work.

For Southwest, it’s probably an issue of getting beyond its airport model. It doesn’t do seasonal destinations, and Anchorage would be a disaster in the winter. Maybe it’ll reconsider at some point. (CEO Gary Kelly did mention Anchorage as something Southwest could look at during Media Day last week, but he gave no indication that the airline would.) It’s also tougher for Southwest because it doesn’t do redeyes, and Anchorage is the perfect redeye market.

So that leaves very few low fare airlines as good candidates. I would think Virgin America could do it from San Francisco if it felt like it, but JetBlue is also a natural fit. JetBlue leaves a fair number of airplanes in Long Beach overnight, and now it can fly one of those airplanes instead of parking it. The flight leaves Long Beach at 740p and is back the next morning at 733a, ready for another day of work.

Also, while JetBlue has a finite number of slots at Long Beach, it can move them around seasonally. Is it worth cutting out one of the multiple-frequency short-haul flights for a couple of months? I’m sure. Right now, the lowest fare Alaska has filed from LA to Anchorage is $331 roundtrip, but you can bet that lowest fare won’t be available much on peak days. JetBlue has about the same fare right now, and that’s good money for the lowest fare in the market. My guess is JetBlue will sell more of the cheap fares than Alaska would.

If I’m Alaska, this in itself isn’t that concerning, but the potential for future growth by low cost airlines is. Then again, Alaska Airlines is a lifeline for so many people, that this may not be a huge issue. But it is an opportunity and JetBlue is smart for trying to take advantage of it.

[JetBlue photo By Aaron Gustafson from Hamden, CT, USA (jetblue airplane) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons]