goatgruff....
As an ATCO, you can be forgiven for not realizing that the majority of us are not able to check in our bags. We are normally required to carry all of our kit through the security process, as (certainly in the case of short-haul pilots) our companies do not make provision for us to check luggage in. With the nature of multi-sector days and aircraft swaps, it would be impractical to do so.
This result is that we will often find ourselves away from home, for perhaps up to five nights, without certain items related to basic personal hygiene.
We are also no longer able to carry the multitools / swiss army knives that we previously used to perform minor repairs. You might consider this to be irrelevant, but I suspect that I’m not the only one who has had to delay the dispatch of my aircraft, while attempting to find an engineer to fix a minor problem down route (which I would previously have dealt with myself), because I have not had the most basic of tools available.
My guess is that most of us would readily accept this state of affairs, if it had any positive impact on security. However, the reality is that it does not. Since any pilot has the ability to do much more harm to/with their aircraft by using their bare hands, rather than a weapon, the only justification for restrictions is the slim possibility that they might pass something on. Any group who is intent on smuggling weapons on to an aircraft, will exploit one of the many ‘holes’ in the cosmetic security net. This would allow them to smuggle significant weapons with a much smaller risk of detection. I consider it unlikely that a terrorist group would attempt to seize an aircraft using pocketknives when the public is now fully aware of the September 11th scenarios. We should all remember that the really dangerous people have no need to carry weapons on to an aircraft.
Also, remember that customs and police officers are allowed to pass through security points completely unchecked. There is no reason to believe that they present any less risk to security than pilots and yet they are able to carry just about anything airside without challenge.
Dyna
