I don't own this space under my name. I should have leased it while I still could
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Lincolnshire
Age: 66
Posts: 5,335
Quote:
Originally Posted by ExSp33db1rd
just stuffed it in my coat pocket and walked off )
Where to? Your newly assigned seat?
On one flight we had competition for our seat. The young lady showed me here boarding card with the same seat number. I pointed out that her boarding card was Belfast to Heathrow (IIRC) and not Heathrow to wherever.
She had a boarding card for this flight too, in a different seat, but had gone all the way through with the wrong card. Probably had the right card at the gate though.
I do like the Tryanair system though where infrequent travellers pitch up at the gate with scrapy computer printouts and get turned away.
How about 'the wrong sort of clear sealable bag' !!!
Stopped at Liverpool Airport - Security Jobsworth took great delight in informing me that it was too big, and not approved - held it up for all his mates, big pow wow. 'You are not coming through here with that, maximum bag size is 20cm by 20 cm' (mine was 25 by 20).
Surprise, surprise - a vending machine at the back of the queue with the 'approved' article
How on gods' earth is this enhancing security?
For the benefit of any Security Staff reading on here, How about:-
'I am sorry sir, petty as it may seem, the regulations state that bags must be of a maximum size, here is one I prepared earlier!
Would make their lives less stressfull, and ours too!!
I understand your frustration ,but you have to remember that these "security" muppets can only see in monocular vision,having rescently had the misfortune to to be in the US i can honestly say that in my opinion the TSA have actually seemed to have improved their customer service,longer ques but we were through alot faster with a better degree of courtesy than the UK equivelent. I am an engineer and it scares me how lax security is for airside workers,at a major eurpean airport i have never had my van checked,the security guys see us day in day out maybe 10-14 times a night,luckily some of us still have some integrity but others may not.
Can someone explain to us just what facilities are in place if one of our well trained security operatives/profilers actually detects a suicide bomber with a chest full of explosives?
No, I thought not.
Denied boarding eh? That should send hime home with his tail between his legs!
Isn't the clear plastic bag rule based on volume - 1 litre capacity isn't it? Don't they just say something along the lines of "this is about equivalent to a 20 cm by 20 cm bag"?
The routine farce that goes on inside terminals as passengers progress through the system will always remain a fatuous exercise designed to demonstrate that Governments are taking action, regardless of how stupid and ineffectual that is.
It will continue to be a fatuous exercise so long as all the other ways of placing weapons, IEDs etc in an aircraft where they can be collected for use by terrorists who board with clean skins via the "Security" channels remain available for use. Placing an explosive device in a selected aircraft for remote, barometric or timed detonation is now as easy as it was on 21st December 1988.
These other ways remain available because they are out of sight of Joe Public, and because action seriously intended to close them down would badly disrupt airline and airport operations, to say nothing of retail activities. So proposals for such action get quietly kicked into touch.
35 years ago, terrorists were hijacking aircraft with plans that, in at least one case that I was intimately concerned with, started being put in place 2 years before the action itself. The level of sophistication is so much greater now that any aircraft can be attacked through any airport in the world, regardless of the care with which sandwiches are confiscated at the selected airport, and whether it has generated an income stream from selling clear plastic bags of the "right" size.
And let me add, for those who would admonish me for pointing this out, that this is nothing that the enemy doesn't know already.
Why would a terrorist even bother to try and get on a plane in this day and age? Swanky hotels in Mumbai and other places, trains and busses in various places, big office blocks and so on leave the victims just as dead and the public just as scared.
I agree that the best way to lessen the risk is for the West to stop terrorising the Islamic countries that it seemingly so despises. Old ideologies and religious history have been and continue to be the biggest killers on the planet.
Him up there is the culprit, in his many disguises.
Yesterday, July 3rd 2009, I was a passenger on AP6173 from VCE to NAP. I am a consultant in security on information management, therefore I am quite interested in any security procedures.
After getting the boarding card, this was checked before security against my ID. Then I had to pass security check, which in Italy has been stepped up a bit because of G8. That meant no belt, liquids, and so on, and in addition I was checked with the GC for explosives.
At boardingtime my card was again checked against my ID.
I just seated at my place, and one of the crew came returning my boarding card saying that I must have lost it. But I didn't. I still had my boarding card: there were TWO boarding cards with my name on it.....
The second card was in the hands on a lady....(I am a male, and my name, in Italy, cannot be mistaken for the one of a lady, btw).
Working every day with computer security, I can understand that a machine can issue two cards with the same name on them.It shouldn't, but it may happen.
In this thread there are posts about people grounded because of discrepancies between the boarding card and the id.
My unanswered question is how a lady could have passed through the "security" checks with nobody detecting this discrepancy. The crew did not have any answer. The only conclusion I can reach is that she, for any reason, didn't go through security checks (it is very unlikely that the discrepancy could have gone unnoticed twice)....
I left to the crew my phone number, and I hope somebody will come back with an explanation.
Some time back I went through our beloved PM's local airport, special branch had taken over security! As a lone private pilot, going through the tradesman's entrance, I had to submit my bags and self to inspection just in case I hijacked myself.
While this farse was taking place a delivery driver was subjected to the same treatment. Mobile phone, keys, jacket etc, etc. He then hopped into his truck and drove air side. Nobody though to look inside the truck, even though it had 6' high letters on the side, TNT!
EGMA. Thanks for sharing your experience of the tradesmans entrance with us.
I'm no lover of the security drones but do you honestly think you are searched purely on the basis that you might hijack yourself? Couldn't be that they might be interested in what might be in your bags?
Seriously, if you're going to complain about them think it through first.
Flintstone - I find a lot of the complaints about security here are of the "why search me, if I wanted to damage my own plane I could just do it?" variety. There's seems to be something of a failure of imagination. Is it inconceivable that a member of flight crew could carry something through security and pass it to a passenger on another flight?
One might quibble about whether they need to confiscate, say, nail scissors, but I can't see why they would need to confiscate them from passengers but not pilots.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating blind 'because I'm security' adherence. With the exception of my home base there seems little if any common sense in the majority of these milk monitors but it doesn't help our calls for a re-think if people don't work their arguments through. Nor do I believe that because I'm crew I should be wholly immune from the process, all I'm asking for is something more sensible than a lot of my colleagues out there have to endure on a day-to-day basis.
I think we have a thread elsewhere that says all this anyway.
With the exception of my home base there seems little if any common sense in the majority of these milk monitors
Out of interest, in what way? The reason I ask is that I'm curious as to why your home base is different. Is it because you know the people administering the system and they know you? I have always considered the security at my home port better than others, partly because I know the system's foibles there and partly, I suspect, because I used to work there and they are people to me, rather than faceless 'security goons'.
Not a loaded question, just interested.
There are many threads on this subject, in many PPRuNe jurisdictions. The fact is that governments will rarely back down on 'safety' measures whether proven or not, because if the worst happens they will be accountable for the backdown. Without ferocious industry opposition or increased industry costs, which hasn't occurred (because costs are passed on to the ticket holder indirectly) it is easier for them to maintain the status quo. If questioning is introduced, I believe that it will be in addition to the current security measures (LAGs possibly excluded) rather than a replacement of them. In any case, a recent Aviation Security audit by the govenment here found general public support for the current level of security. No government wants to be the one to relax the regs, only to have an 'incident' occur on their watch. Very bad for media coverage and voter confidence. Of course, the endgame is that we all fly in the nude with no cabin baggage, but from a risk assessment point of view that is probably desirable
Second para of Worrals' post is spot on. 'Security' is a ratchet - always increases, never decreases - because there is no possible political gain to be achieved by reducing security (because you'll be blamed by press & public for any/all future attacks, including imaginary ones that haven't yet occurred).
The only possible way (that I can see) to fix this is to have a neutral body conduct a meaningful cost-benefit analysis of airport security. This would take into account the cost to the economy of the delays incurred, cost to pax of employing extra security staff, etc. There's a huge resistance to doing this, because you're effectively putting a price on human lives (ie the lives lost in the attack you didn't prevent because you 'reduced' security). So we're left with 'security theatre' (copyright Bruce Scheider) which is all about reassurance (for the largely ignorant public) and political ass-covering.
BTW - the issue of searching flight crew. This makes perfect sense (and I'm the biggest critic of airport security there is, believe me): they're not searching 'flight crew', they're searching 'people dressed as flight crew'. If you insist on not being searched because you're crew, you create a class of traveller for a terrorist to pretend to be in order to avoid being searched. (And if you say: well, I have ID which shows I'm crew, you create a form of ID which terrorists will copy). Anyone not carrying credentials issued by the security staff of the airport you're traveling through has to be searched as though they were a potential threat. (Obviously, this doesn't deal with the question of how secure the credentials issued by the airport are, but that's not germane to the discussion of searching flight crew - not searching crew would always reduce security).
Personally, I am completely turned off by the farce called "airport security" in India. First, you can't enter the terminal without a ticket, but in this day and age, anyone can print a fake ticket at home. Then, there are numerous checks along the way, with earnest-looking officials stamping and checking your boarding pass all along the gate. Then, a baggage tag is attached to your hand luggage which is stamped at the gate x-ray station.
The effect of all this is exactly the opposite of what is clearly intended. Instead of feeling secure, passengers are asking themselves why everything has to be checked and re-checked repeatedly. Is each individual involved in the security process so unreliable that he needs double-checking? And if anyone with a printer can get inside the terminal in the first place, why even have restricted entry?
Your post implied that you couldn't see the point in being searched when you were a pilot. I'm saying that doesn't preclude you from having other motives. I agree some of them are laughable and indeed it's the only way to respond if we want to keep our blood pressure ata healthy level.
Worral.
My base is Farnborough and with one exception in nine years of flying through there (and that was six years ago) they're much more sensible than the drones encountered on many, many occasions at other airports like Heathrow, London City, Gatwick, Luton and the like. I'm sure that since becoming based there (rather than passing through) the familiarity factor has helped but even before I knew anyone there they were always a pleasure to deal with. Maybe they're trained differently.
Fair enough, thanks for that. I guess it's like any job, some places have a good culture and some are toxic.
There was a government review of screening here recently that had some surprisingly good recommendations. One of them was to drop the requirement for screeners to have security licenses, widening the pool of applicants and taking the focus from being a 'guard' to being a screener. Another was to provide customer contact and conflict resolution skills as part of the screener training. While it sounds semantic, if implemented properly it could lessen the Goon component. What they also need to do is standardize the implementation of the regulations, because even domestically it varies widely between ports, which is pointless and extremely irritating.
Many airports do not provide space for you to put your luggage together, put your belt back on etc after you get checked. Surely a couple of tables behind the scanners are ot a security risk?
Worrals, so you believe what you read in a Government report on a government activity and you actually think they will do something sensible?
"Is it inconceivable that a member of flight crew could carry something through security and pass it to a passenger on another flight?"
No its not, but what about screeners? Isn´t it possible that they pass something on to a passenger? Who checks them? Who is more likely to be tempted to do something like that, a security screener with close to minimum wage or a pilot with usually a tad more money in his pocket?
What was first, the egg or the hen?
I´m not saying that I need to be immune to searching, but there has to be an sensible approach to it. The size of the plastic bag is of no importance, just to pick one example off this thread.
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