Brilliant thread..and one which provokes a lot of thought...
However I'd like to bring perhaps a different slant to it....and one which may not be welcome....
Jonny Jobsworth on security has a fairly limited remit...perhaps deliberately because of limited ability or because the rules are set up that way.
So along comes Captain Chaos and his merry men (or women), in full uniform and fully tooled up to fly. Now JJ has seen many CCs today...all of whom are accredited and hold ID which looks good...
Now I can go out and rent or purchase clothes that make me appear to be an airline pilot...and I can easily create ID which JJ would believe to be correct and legit...neither however would make me an airline pilot.
So here we have the heart of the matter. Pilots by and large are honest, law abiding and non suicidal people who love what they are doing. If they wanted to take a plane out, as has been expounded at length, they are more than able to do so without resort to explosives etc...
But are all people who look like pilots actually pilots?
So JJ and more to the point JJ's boss's boss's boss thinks that if pilots are excempt from the security rules then there is the potential for a breach of that security....So JJ is instructed to treat CC as just another person who may be a malfaisant, hell bent on destruction, carrying a lethal cocktail of mineral water and cell phone is his flight bag...
In reality the solution is very very simple (but costs money) ...have a security check point only for flight and cabin crew..with access to the airlines' crew roster to ensure the Captain Chaos is indeed going to fly Happy Airlines Flight 100 today..It would both speed up the process and remove the public's free show of seeing the crew being strip searched for lip stick....
Just a thought...