Let’s say you’re the kind of person who finds it practical to buy a couple bottles of water at the convenience store before going to the airport… well, maybe you should make your flight an opportunity to get wasted. With all the competition from those nasty carried-on beverages gone, all terminal and in-flight drink outlets can jack up the prices of water and soft drinks to a level just under that of liquor. Maybe even higher, if it is found that the urge to just slake the thirst actually is more common than that of getting hammered.

Next, you have to hand over your precious gadgets to be exposed to whatever goes on between the check-in and the conveyor belt at your destination. It’s not all bad, though, just consider how much more efficiently the insides of your new MacBook Pro can be searched if you’re not around to interrupt with things like “there’s a quick-release to open that…”

So, what to do without the tech you’re so dependent on? Well, if you need to make a phone call, just ride the moving walkway of nostalgia to the pay phones. But just so you don’t have to go all the way back to the time when contacts were stored in books of forest-unfriendly paper (which you couldn’t bring anyway – never know what kind of dangerous chemicals can be mixed into ink), just use the new AirSync account. This service allows you to enter your phone book into an online account, and your contacts will be only a credit card swipe away from the phone.

And if you want to get some work done on that trans-continental flight there’s the AirSync Business plan, which gives you the use of a secure laptop to access your pre-uploaded documents – after they have been screened to make sure all text runs from left to right and don’t contain any blueprints of Boeing 777s, of course. And since each airline will have it’s own service, it might be as good for customer loyalty as frequent flier points.

Rely on your iPod to avoid being exposed to the bland, suitable-for-the-majority in-flight entertainment? I’m sure that some airline can convince Apple of the mutual rewards of allowing users to access their iTunes from the plane. Just pay ten dollars and enter your iTunes-info when you book, and then there’s nothing more than the cost of a pair of detonator-free headphones keeping you from your music. Just make sure you’re not wearing them when the flight attendant announces that the refueling is done but there still will be a slight delay for file transfers.

Doesn’t it all fit so well together? The price of jet-fuel is rising, and cut-throat competition keeps the seat prices down – and then suddenly there is this new, ingenious terror-threat that opens so many nooks and crannies to stuff full of hidden costs.

Or maybe there’s still some fun left in the good old conspiracy-theory game…

For a slightly more serious end-note I guess I have to mention that I’m far from a frequent flier, but if I were I’m pretty sure I would take a gamble with the risk of being blown out of the sky once, rather than have to contend with all the new security measures they keep coming up with each and every time.

I tested the 2006 version, but decided to try a few other solutions before buying, but I am pretty sure I will switch to Panda after this test. I just ran the first full system scan, and it chewed through four volumes containing about 220GB/450 000 files in 30 minutes, without any notable impact on system performance. Using earlier version I have been able to work in Photoshop and play games during scans, and that is not the case with many other AV solutions. Easy to use as well, without being bloated like Norton and similar. Worth checking out.