Well, all things considered, keeping United happy with TSA is pretty important at this juncture as that is the gravy train right now. Not to mention, safety really needs to be the key here. MX has always left something to be desired in my tenure there, not that I ever felt as thought my safety was in question, otherwise I never would have gotten on the airplane.

I understand that times are tough right now, but skimping on MX could and will always do more harm than good. Hopefully we can still learn something from the Alaska Airlines incident some years back. Poor MX practices are always a bad thing.