[justme]

PHX, thank you for making this point for me. Frankly, I am surprised that one of the two locks was still intact. I haven't looked recently, but last the last policy I was aware of, had us displaying signage that said something to the effect of do not have your bags locked when you send them to security. You can have a lock on it, but don't actually lock it. Then, after it is screened, TSA should be locking it when they're finished looking at what they need to. Definitely an imperfect system, but it's better than just having your lock cut off and rendered totally useless. I do want to reiterate the point that PHX made, since I started on the ramp, and still have friends that work there. I know from personal experience that two things are true. First, while it is misfortunate, wrong, illegal, and repulsive, theft does happen. TSA, airline employees, contract employees, and government officials have all been guilty of it. Proving who it was is generally very difficult, if not impossible, unless there is a "sting" operation which has happened in the past. And second, rampers simply do not have the time to search thru bags and hope to find something of (monetary) value. Turn times are generally made as short as possible. Someone did some calculations in another thread and came up with something like each bag is touched for an average of about 5 seconds. That is definitely not enough time to open, search, remove items, and resecure a bag. Don't automatically assume it was the airline employees who were the ones "theiving" things from your bags.