We know that earlier this week, Heathrow’s Terminal 5 opened up.

It’s the first time they’ve opened up something new in Heathrow in a long time.

I was over there to report on the brand-new facility and how big and wonderful it was.

But you know what? I smelled the rat.

I walked into that building when they gave me the tour a couple weeks ago and it’s a five-story building with all these brand-name restaurants and state-of-the-art technology.

But when I walked through the building, I said, “Where are the chairs? Where are people going to sit?”

“Oh no, no one will need to sit; they’ll be streamlined right through their flights.”

Really? Have you flown in the year 2008? Does the word “weather” ring a bell? Cancellations?

Heathrow may have all these new terminal buildings, but they still only have two runways. Wake up!

Well, they opened up the terminal this week and guess what? Cancellation after cancellation of flights and guess why? The brand-new luggage system fell apart. Bags are being lost left and right. In fact they were canceling 78 flights, 59 flights—it was crazy.

You know what I say, there are only two kinds of airline bags: carry on and lost. And of course, Terminal 5 proves that point. People are still waiting for bags.

But it is a brand-new terminal, so you are going to love the beautiful architecture while you have nowhere to sit and you can’t find your bags. We’ll find out what happens soon. I mean look, I am all in favor of improvements, but let’s get the common sense deal out of the way.

SAFETY IN THE AIR?

This is also the week where, gee, what a surprise, a gun goes off in the cockpit. I love army pilots. And of course, he has been suspended. Duh. That is what happens. Do you feel safer now? All you Clint Eastwood guys?

And, speaking of safety in the air, how about this report: How many air marshals do you actually think are flying on flights? How about hardly any? That’s right, hardly any. In fact, listen to this statistic: Of the 28,000 commercial airline flights that take to the sky on an average day in the United States, fewer than 1 percent are actually with air marshals on board. How do you like those odds?

And, of course, they all sit in the same seat. It is called 3B. They all wear their Dockers, reading their Tom Clancy novels and their Pendleton shirts and try to blend. And of course, you see them the minute they board the flight because they went on first. Wow, I love the element of surprise.

The last time they fired a gun they killed somebody on a jetway in Miami. They called that a security breach. The guy was already off the plane; who were they protecting?

I am telling you airline security never ceases to amaze me—before 9/11 it was a psychological attempt to protect us from truly emotional disturbed people who may have wanted to take the plane to Cuba.

After 9/11 it is an attempt to make those people who don’t fly very often feel better. You know what? Those of us who do fly very often, we know better. This is nuts and it is a waste of our money.

You want real security in the air? Get the guy in uniform, put him in the jump seat next to the cockpit, facing the passengers and have him take the Tom Clancy book away from him and actually look at people. This whole incognito deal doesn’t work when we all know where the incognito seat is. Duh!

INSPECTION-GATE, CONTINUED

And of course we had the big story: first American Airlines, then Delta, grounding hundreds of flights because of wiring problems and because of failure to comply with what is known as an airworthiness directive.

I think you need to know how your FAA is working. Answer: it ain’t!

You know, if you pass an airworthiness directive and you give the airlines two to three years to comply with something on a known problem, does that make you feel safer? It doesn’t make me feel safer. If you know the problem and you know the solution, how about implementing it now?

So, what happened this week? Why did the airlines suddenly ground all their MD80 airplanes? What did they suddenly discover? You know what? They suddenly discovered that the two-year deadline on the airworthiness directive was expiring and they hadn’t done anything. Had the Southwest airlines incident not surfaced, they might have let it expire anyway.

So, the airlines were saying, “Well, we were sort of in compliance or we were in compliance sort of.”

I’ve had dates like that, where I was sort of in compliance. You know what? It didn’t do me any good either. So, bottom line is you either do it right or don’t do it at all.

PASSENGER BILL OF RIGHTS … OR NO RIGHTS

Remember last year in August when the New York state legislature passed unanimously a passenger bill of rights? It was signed into law by then-governor, Eliot “Client #9” Spitzer.

Well guess what? The airlines, of course, did what thought the airlines would do: They went to court and try to get it thrown out, claiming the states have no jurisdiction over airlines because of federal air deregulation. A lower court judge actually threw the case out and said no, the state did have jurisdiction because it was a health and safety issue.

Well guess what? A higher court just threw it out again and just basically said, nope the states have no jurisdiction, so there is no passenger bill of rights.

So, when you are stuck on that plane for the next three hours. You know what you should do? Do what I do, declare you are sick. That is the only way you are going to get back to the gate and when the paramedics come up with the court authority police and they want to know what you are sick with—you tell them you were sick of being on the runway.

Of course, when you are taken to prison, I’ll come and testify for you in your trial.

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