Expert: New Security Steps a Smokescreen

New security restrictions swiftly implemented following a botched attempt to blow up an airliner on Christmas Day are a poor attempt to make passengers think skies are safer, says one expert. And airlines are concerned the new rules are making air travel more burdensome and could discourage some business fliers -- key customers for them.

Tougher security measures were imposed after a man flying from Nigeria to Amsterdam then to the U.S. on a Northwest Airlines flight Friday tried to ignite an explosive as the plane prepared to land in Detroit. On Sunday, police met another Amsterdam-to-Detroit flight after the crew reported a "verbally disruptive passenger." A law enforcement official said the man posed no security risk to the plane.

Government officials didn't detail the restrictions, saying they don't want terrorists to know about potential security measures. They also declined to say how long the measures would be in effect, and said the limits could vary from airport to airport.

Travelers on incoming international flights said that, during the final hour, attendants removed blankets, banned opening overhead bins, and told passengers to stay in their seats with their hands in plain sight.

CBS News Travel Correspondent Peter Greenberg noted that, in the last hour of flights coming into the U.S., in-flight entertainment systems are also turned off, "meaning they're not gonna show you that little map showing where the plane is. Pilots are not going to be allowed to announce where you are. It gets a little crazy."

What's more, Greenberg told "Early Show" co-anchor Harry Smith Monday, similar measures "weren't effective in the past. We even have a new system now where you're only allowed one carry-on bag on flights coming to the United States -- not one carry-on bag and your computer. One carry-on bag. They used to do that, and that made havoc in the skies, because people who were transferring on different flights were denied boarding.

"The real problem here is that, tomorrow, if someone tried to detonate a bomb on a plane and, right before he detonated it, he sang, 'Mary Had a Little Lamb,' the TSA (Transportation Safety Administration) would issue a rule tomorrow saying, 'No singing on a plane.' It is a very bad camouflage attempt of not dealing with the real issue of how did this guy clear security in Nigeria and twice in Amsterdam, and still get on the plane?"

Passengers will likely face longer lines at checkpoints for all flights and less freedom to move around the airplane in the air.

Leisure travelers, such as the families that packed airports to return home on Sunday after the holiday, are likely to put up with the new inconveniences, as they have before.

But, say analysts, business travelers may think twice before flying if stepped-up security means spending hours at the airport. That's troubling to the airlines, because business travelers tend to fly frequently and pay higher fares.

Some business travelers could jump from the major airlines to smaller business jets to avoid wasting hours in the terminal every time they fly, said airline consultant Robert Mann.

The new security measures are "just going to add to the overall onerous way we have to conduct travel," said Kevin Mitchell, president of the Business Travel Coalition. "No doubt it will dampen demand."

More Coverage from CBSNews.com:

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Abdulmutallab Shocks Family, Friends
Abdulmutallab Was on U.K. Watch List
U.S. Reviewing Security, Red Flag Tactics
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Obama Orders Airport Screening Review
Who Is Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab?
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Expert: Yemen Ties Could be "Game Changer"

Alarmed by the prospect of losing their best customers, airlines are already asking federal officials to make any new procedures palatable to passengers.

In Philadelphia, sisters Leslie and Lilliam Bernal said security was much tighter as they returned from a wedding in the Dominican Republic than it had been in September, when they made the same trip.

Leslie, 26, of Keasby, N.J, said security screeners in Santo Domingo asked her to lift her long hair so they could look at her back.

"I don't mind at all," she said. "I'd rather them do what they have to do."

At Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, television screens were tuned to the Atlanta Falcons football game, and some passengers were only faintly aware of Friday's incident in Detroit.

Jeff Fox, of Alpharetta, Georgia, who was returning with his family from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, after a weeklong cruise, said he will tolerate new restrictions if officials think they will keep passengers safer.

"I'm one of those who trusts that they're trying to do the right thing, even if it is a pain," he said.

Silvia Zhang, 20, of Chicago, said restrictions on her flight from Hong Kong to O'Hare Airport made her feel "like I was in school again - there were too many rules."

But, she added, "it might be necessary because of what happened."

Ricky Sui, a 44-year-old Atlanta resident, said attendants on his flight home Sunday from Panama were clearly more vigilant, making everyone shut off laptops and taking up blankets. But he doubted that such steps would make a difference.

"It's all to appease the public and make you feel safer," he said. "They get all excited for a while, but in a couple months they won't be doing it anymore."

Leisure travelers "tend to be very accommodating of changes in the security regime," said Mann, the airline consultant. "My concern is that business travelers are less so" because they buy high-priced tickets and expect to spend the least possible time waiting at airports.

There is no talk of panic, said Jack Riepe, a spokesman for the Association of Corporate Travel Executives. "We're not looking at massive cancelations," he said.

But Riepe said corporate travel managers want the government to explain how Friday's suspect reached Detroit even though he was on a watch list maintained by counterterrorism experts. A government official said the suspect's father raised concerns about him to U.S. officials several weeks ago, but the father's information about his son's possible ties to fundamentalist Islamic groups was too vague to act upon.

Darryl Jenkins, an airline industry consultant, predicted that any increase in airport lines would be temporary, until security screeners become proficient at operating under new rules.

"This is disruptive, and we all hate it, but I don't think it's going to affect (travel) demand," Jenkins said. "Now if it had been a successful attempt, that would be something else."

U.S. airlines have been appealing to federal officials to make restrictions effective, but palatable to passengers.

They remember that passengers accepted tough new security measures immediately after the 2001 terror attacks, which grounded all flights for several days, but that support for the restrictions waned.

"Today that attempt on Friday is fresh in their minds," said David Castelveter, a spokesman for the Air Transport Association, a trade group for the largest U.S. airlines. "As days and weeks and months go on, that memory fades and it becomes an inconvenience."