Can't say that I was concerned. That's because I assumed that in the 21st century, losing an airliner full of people really wasn't possible. I was wrong. I'll bet a lot of people are quite surprised by this. If terrorists didn't take over and steal this plane, they now know that you sure can. Piece of cake. Fly over the ocean and you're gone.
Well, there you have it, so I'll give it a rest. The Pilots of America have spoken. A box of tennis shoes rolling over interstate 80 is more valuable cargo than people in an airliner.
You know, it might actually be a clever sales pitch for international airlines in the future. "Fly with us! We actually know where our planes are at all times, even over the ocean."
Ignorance and surprise aren't much of a rational way to determine the needs of an industry that never promised real-time updates and tracking of transportation vessels.
Your assertion that an airline *could* offer it, is sound though. The flying public can decide if they want to pay for it at the ticket counter.
I would assert that you're wasting money, but hey... If you're that worried about it, knock yourself out.
Knowing where the bodies are, doesn't usually fix the root-cause problem, other than it makes the black box easier to locate.
The "tennis balls" outrage is misplaced. Many trucking industry companies do compete by having real-time tracking and their customers are willing to pay for it. There are plenty of freight companies that don't have tracking also. All depends on what you want to pay.
Most trucking companies added the tracking to deal with wayward drivers and constant fines for bad logbooks, as well as integrated maintenance messages from on-board systems, which is a large part of data systems from airliners also.
The airplane tells someone it needs a mechanic at the next stop. Tracking over oceans was never a mandatory system design requirement.
I'm sure that if there were a way to nickle and dime people with an offer when buying your airline ticket that said, "would you like to purchase a dead body tracking device?", the airlines would have already paired up with a technology partner and it'd be on the booking website.
Not kidding. They're an industry willing to charge $6 to watch TV for less than two hours.
"Sir, I see you purchased the body tracking option. Please hold out your wrist so we can clamp this on. Please note that in the fine print we are absolved of all liability for this system working in the event of fire, high G load shock forces to the device on your wrist, or accidental amputation of your tracked arm from your torso. Thank you for purchasing the dead body tracking option, and enjoy your flight. If anyone else would like a dead body tracking wrist device, the purser will be by momentarily with the credit card reader."
As far as the terrorism comments go, there's still holes in airport security worldwide that one could drive a Mack truck through. Only a small sub-set of them have been effectively stopped. Anyone dead set on harming an airliner, still can, fairly easily.
