Originally Posted by
egnxema
but don't assume that any part of the security process is at the request of BAA.
The "One Bag" approach is absolutely at the behest of BAA.
Stupidly when the UK Government started thinking about expanded security checks they asked BAA to assist, not having realised that BAA long ago gave up having airport matters as their main thrust, and only treat them as an incidental add on to running a retail park. BAA said they could not make enough screeners available to check more than one bag per passenger, even for transits.
It was bad enough that passengers would have any bottles of wine or normal-sized cosmetics confiscated from them, only to be offered them for sale again by the BAA monopoly immediately afterwards. BAA lobbied hard to have the limitation applied at security, not when boarding the aircraft (makes sense, huh ?
). But BAA said they were unable to make any additional staff available for security checks, despite having hundreds of fully security-cleared retail staff on duty airside who, in a number of the concessions, appear to have little to occupy them during the day.
So one bag through security, buy your replacements in our conveniently located outlets just beyond. Yes please, minister, as the experts on airports we can say that is exactly the way to do it.
Anyone comment on the suggestion in the Manchester thread that I as a British citizen will be required to be finger printed flying domestically from Terminal 5?
Yes, correct. This is to ensure that as domestic pax you are able to use your democratic right to shop in all the shopping areas of T5 and not be confined to a small domestic-only area like in T1 at present, which presumably impacts on spend per passenger. It wasn't in the original plan. Someone's bright idea though.