New Jersey to Miami via Ben Gurion

At the end of this week I am heading to Miami with my family and I was thinking about the safety issues regarding the flight. It is clear that the security that is in place to give us the impression that we are safe is completely ineffective and purely theatrical. The TSA officers are busy worrying about a little old lady with an oversized tube of toothpaste rather than a single guy named Ahmed traveling alone with his prayer rug. The only effective security deserving of the word is El Al’s.

At first I thought the only secure way to get to Miami from New Jersey by air is to fly from New York to Miami with a stopover in Tel Aviv. This way I could get El Al security for my trip to Miami. El Al does fly roundtrip from Miami to Israel and although this is the safest itinerary I would spend my entire vacation in the air. Obviously, I would also have to fly back from Miami to Israel then to New Jersey. It would also be a rather expensive nonvacation for me and my family. I figure at least 20k just for the flights as opposed to about 2k if I fly directly. There must be a better way.

On a more serious note, I started asking some people if they would pay an extra fee if everyone on their flight was subjected to real El Al security. Everyone I spoke to was willing to pay some sum of money from 20 to 100 dollars for the added benefit. Perhaps there should be certain flights which include this heightened level of security for all the passengers. It would clearly cost more per ticket but I think there is a market for such a designated flight. A person can choose to pay extra or he could choose to go on a flight with standard TSA security. It would be interesting to see whether there is a market for such a product.

So at the end of this week I am placing my security in the hands of the TSA as I travel direct from New Jersey to Miami. I figure the odds are pretty good that nobody will opt to blow themselves up and I don’t want to spend the extra time and money stopping over in Ben Gurion (although I could go for decent shwarma). But given the option of added El Al security on my direct flight, I would certainly pay an additional fee for the piece of mind, knowing I am flying under the protection of Israeli security.