Lessons Learned in Tokyo's Narita Airport

As I travel to Taiwan on my vacation, I passed through Tokyo's Narita airport. The airport is clean, efficient and well organized, much like Japan in general. My eyes are always scanning to see what can America learn and adopt

A few things I observed are:
(1) Transit passengers can simply pass arrive at one gate, pass through a security screen and go to their next gate. It seems obvious but the United States requires transiting passengers to obtain a visa. Why? Great question! I have never been able to explain this to friends of mine who are simply passing through a US airport on the way to South America. These transit passengers aren't passing through immigration to enter the country so why harass them for a document. We can pretend this makes us more secure but we are jsut pretending.

(2) Don't waste people's time on shoe removal! Richard Reid was an inept want-to-be terrorist who clearly didn't want to succeed (note: if you want to actually light your shoe bomb or underwear on fire to blow up a plane you might risk igniting in the bathroom where your success rate will be much higher though you may be at risk of the $500 non-smoking fine if the bomb fails to ignite). Shoe removal is just one of the many “smoke and mirror” type security measures we routinely do in the United States which add no value and simply waste time. Anything I can hide in my shoe I could also hide in my socks or underwear...now we know that there are very smart people in the US government who also realized that many people wear socks and underwear. So why are we continuing this shoe removal policy? The cynic in me believes that is is merely to make it seem like we are responding to security threats though few people, citizens or terrorists are impressed. Add security measures that add value (in my next post I'll discuss that)

(3) Toilets equipped with warmers, water sprays and deodorants...I think you have to experience this for yourselves to understand.