Re: Security checks for crews are getting to the riduculous!
Let me make my position a little clearer.......... I also think much of the petty security that is imposed at airports today is ill targeted, unnecessary, over the top and probably a complete waste of time. I too have fumed at being asked to take my shoes off, remove my lap top from its case and put it through seperately, take my belt off my trousers even before it has had a chance to set off the AMD. I also get fed up with the thieves charter in the USA which says you cannot make your personal items secure by locking your case.................................but
comments such as
'You might like to cite me just ONE instance of where an operating crew member has hijacked/attempted to his own aircraft.'
are pretty dumb. Before 9/11 no one could give an example of 2 a/c being deliberately flown into a high rise building, but it did happen didn't it.
Am I not right in thinking that there has been one instances at least of an airliner being crashed because the pilot wished to end it all?
Superpilot (no ego in that name is there!) to be a screener you have to give detailed background checks in way more depth than is required for flight deck or cabin crew, plus they have regular profficiency checks that if they fail, they are taken off line and re trained or sacked if they fail again.
FlyBlue I agree that the screener can be unpleasantly invasive, and in a past life I reported a guard that some of my staff had complained was 'too thorough'. Video evidence was checked, and without his knowing he was monitored for a week. At the end of it I was told that actually he was the only one performing the check as thoroughly as it should be!!
The current security regs are not pleasant for anyone, but I would feel unhappy getting on an aircraft knowing the crew hadn't been screened.