Originally Posted by
OOfff
It’s millions of dollars in modifications to chase a near nonexistent threat. It’s as dumb as all the money poured into the FFDO program. You can call it cheap insurance, but when you’re insuring against things that don’t happen, it’s just waste.
It's nothing like millions for a new-build airplane. It also would not be millions to retro-fit, although that would cost more than new build.
Common gross conceptual error for non-military folks is the thinking that any defense with less than 100% efficacy is a waste of money.
It's not. The opposition (including terrorist groups with the means to attempt a 9/11 style hijacking) always considers risks and obstacles... they do not like to throw hail mary's because failure is bad press, and tends to de-motivate their funding sources. So throw enough partially effective obstacles in their way and sum total of that is enough to severely discourage them. No fly lists, agressive counter-terror on the part of intel/law enforcement, TSA, improved procedures, FFDO, barriers... it all adds up to a lot of swiss cheese with few holes. Barriers are VERY high efficacy for actually very low cost... compared to all of the other mitigations I mentioned
