2 incidents -
first, flying Mid-East airport to LON via Bucharest. Held up for an hour at transit while they tried to get an x-ray working. Finally took us to another X-ray to check our carry-ons ("what on earth for - we've already been checked first sector?")
A few days later I found a "Stanley knife" (box-cutter) in my laptop bag that I use as a carry-on, which had been in a side pocket since I bought it ages ago and forgot to transfer it to my tool box. Very startled, to say the least - I know the X-ray profile of these things must be quite small, with most of them being plastic, but I got it through X-ray twice! And that's what, I understand, was used on Sept 11th.
second, flying from UK to USA and last in the line to board. Most of the pax had their bags physically checked but I was just asked "anything sharp?", or words to that effect, and let on board.
Was that because I was holding a "staff ticket"? or because they were running late geting the plane boarded?
Still an awful lot to do before we can be sure there's no "bad boys" getting on with us I'm afraid.