Security - Humbug!
Well I’ve read some garbage in my time, Mr Bernoulli, but your understanding of our job and industry proves what a total lack of knowledge you hold about the current way a modern airline works. ‘No mobile telephones on the flight deck’, without which we would probably never get airborne half the time. What on earth do you think we do? Have you even contemplated what it takes to fly to the USA right now? What do you understand about the use of aircraft radio equipment while refuelling? Not a lot, obviously.
Frankly. I am thoroughly pissed off having to put up with the utter contempt shown by security personnel toward aircrew. I have been in this industry longer than most of them and I would like to ask why it is and who decides that I am a risk and the security guard isn’t. Personally, I think that the security guards have a greater opportunity to house a ‘sleeper’ than fully employed members of flight crew. At any time, a security guard who may be sympathetic to some warped cause is more likely to be in a position to compromise the safety of an aircraft by being collusion with others or simply planting a device in a passing case.
Profiling is the way forward, and let’s start with the pilots. I have already had to prove that I have been in continuous employment. I have had to supply references from every previous employer and personal references. I have had to have been assessed by the Disclosure Scotland people who have dragged through my background and all sorts. I have had to attend interviews with the airport authorities and at the US embassy in London to prove I am an honest sole. On the back of all this I get a security pass which frankly isn’t worth a cent. The other day I offered to give it back and just check in with the passengers instead.
At what point am I considered to be a responsible guy? I wonder, and in particular, why do I have to suffer the indignities of a bunch of twisted, paranoid, megalomaniac bunch of idiots most of whom have been recently dragged off the street with no, or little, previous history in this business, simply to swell the ranks of the security personnel who are blind to see that if they piss enough people off they will be out of a job as more and more people cease to put up with this paranoia.
After all that can anyone out there point at any terrorist act carried out by a paid and employed airline pilot? Given that the Egypt air crash was cause by a psychologically imbalance chap, he was not a terrorist and no airport scanner or body search that I know of can detect that sort of mental problem.
These security people have hi-jacked our industry and it's time to take it back!!They think that we are there because they are and not the other way around.
Last edited by On-MarkBob; 23rd Aug 2006 at 21:52.