Practically speaking, blowing up a plane is probably the most difficult option you could choose if you wanted to kill 300 people. Why not pick one of the other myriad unguarded 'soft' targets where people gather?
The point of terrorism is to terrorize and blowing up commercial jets is a force multiplier because many people already have deep seated anxieties about air travel. Most people don't know anything about aerodynamics or how jet engines work, so they don't naturally accept the notion that a tin can carrying them 8 miles above the ground is safe. But people grin and bear it anyway because our culture has created this social fact: airplanes are safe. But every time a plane blows up, all the nagging suppressed anxieties come back to the surface.
Hell, my wife almost became an aeronautical engineer and she still freaks out if I don't call her after landing even though she knows perfectly well that I'm far more likely to die walking to the subway that takes me to the airport than on the flight itself.
There's a reason that so many people drink both on planes and at airport bars. Many of them need to be liquored up to deal with their fear and anxiety about flying. And there's a reason why airlines never ever ever mention safety in competitive terms: they understand that a lot of the flying public are on edge and that even if taking a potshot at a competitor gets them a few extra customers, adding to the general fear will shrink the total number of flyers more than enough to cancel out any gains. A slightly bigger slice of a smaller pie is a bad deal.
The point of terrorism is to terrorize and blowing up commercial jets is a force multiplier because many people already have deep seated anxieties about air travel. Most people don't know anything about aerodynamics or how jet engines work, so they don't naturally accept the notion that a tin can carrying them 8 miles above the ground is safe. But people grin and bear it anyway because our culture has created this social fact: airplanes are safe. But every time a plane blows up, all the nagging suppressed anxieties come back to the surface.
Hell, my wife almost became an aeronautical engineer and she still freaks out if I don't call her after landing even though she knows perfectly well that I'm far more likely to die walking to the subway that takes me to the airport than on the flight itself.
There's a reason that so many people drink both on planes and at airport bars. Many of them need to be liquored up to deal with their fear and anxiety about flying. And there's a reason why airlines never ever ever mention safety in competitive terms: they understand that a lot of the flying public are on edge and that even if taking a potshot at a competitor gets them a few extra customers, adding to the general fear will shrink the total number of flyers more than enough to cancel out any gains. A slightly bigger slice of a smaller pie is a bad deal.