My 2p.....
Security staff at Norwich International (don't you just know it's going to be a poxy regional airport when they feel the need to add 'International' to their title by the way, Heathrow International, Gatwick International anyone?!) have always been very pleasant, courteous and down to earth whenever I've flown out from there, which given their paltry wages must be an effort. However, as a wider issue these 'security' measures really p#ss me off these days. Last month flew out of Gatwick and the queues were immense and I was totally not in the mood for adopting the 'good 'ol British public Dunkirk spirit' crap which they were obviously relying on. My loud comment of 'I'm soooo glad we are winning the war on terror' was NOT appreciated as I tasted my baby sons nappy cream after being herded for ages through security and having deodorants binned which I bought again 5 minutes later. This week flew to Zurich from LCY with just hand baggage. Took no deodorant, hair gel or toothpaste as knew it would get taken from me, but the LCY website implied I could buy new products once I was through security. Through security - no toothpaste, only hair gel was some poncey small tube for £13, and only deodorant was small tin of Hugo Boss stuff for another £13!
So, £26 lighter for what I can get from Boots for a fiver, and in a bad mood, I board plane. Next day on way back through security at Zurich confiscate my tiny but relatively highly expensive Hugo Boss deodorant (which I managed to use just once), because 'it's too big to take through'. Security seemed surprised that again I was a tad miffed by this. All this for a security alert that ended with the supposed perpetrators released without charge. Don't get me wrong, I know we have to be careful (primarily thanks to our own dense meddling in other peoples countries), but for Christs sake, as a trained aviation security adviser said at the time of the first panic measures 'I could look at any check-in queue at any time and instantly judge that 95% of them pose no threat whatsoever', instead EVERY single person get's targeted - is that intelligence led security?
--- waits to be shot down in flames now....(no pun intended) ...for my bad attitude!
I just hate losing civil liberty bit by bit in the name of keeping our 'freedom', seems to me the terrorists have substantially won!