BAA - Bumbling Autocratic A**holes
Its time BALPA and/or a group of pilots took these officious, rubber-gloved, soiled underwear inspecting, polyester uniformed, rent-a-sniffs to the European Court. There have been instances where BAA have denied an airport pass, with no right of appeal, and the individual terminated within days after being hired by the respective UK airline. BAA will tell you they are acting on UK Government directives. Therefore, the government must take some blame for allowing BAA to run amok with the legislation.
On a daily basis at any UK major airport, you will see hundreds of foreign flight crew pass through security posts. BAA have not conducted background checks on any of these individuals, yet they allow them to pass through restricted airport security posts with nothing more than a foreign airline identification badge (some as convincing as the top of a cereal box).
It should not be left to BAA to deny a person the right to earn a living simply because BAA are unable to confirm employment by an airline long since out of business or in some far corner of the world, where the pilot may have walked off the job due to various breaches of contract. If a pilot is recruited by a UK airline and employment references are checked by that airline, and they provide a current UK police no criminal record certificate, that should be the end of it. BAA have confirmed on numerous occasions that they are incompetent to perform security checks in any event.
Last edited by Tommy Tilt; 16th Mar 2011 at 17:21.