the jet2 boss has admitted to the bbc that they didnt (before today) do a headcount when they have used an airbridge (jetway).
what i dont understand is why the hugely expensive "swipe your boarding card" automatic gates BEFORE security that manchester airport spent so much time and effort to invest in, are no longer being used. someone posted on the Manchester Evening News website that "passengers didn't understand how to use them". well how hard can it be to hold a barcode against a barcode reader and step forward when the light goes green ? if they had been in place this would not have happened.
i flew out of manchester on sunday. before reaching the departue lounge my boarding card was checked only by the staff member who was handing out the trays and loading the xray. which looked like a busy job as she was also trying to help the dizzy person in front of me walk through the metal detector turnstile gate thing they have now. too many things to concentrate on at once, if it gets busy its easy to see how someone could get that far. the non-checking at the gate before boarding is less easy to understand but probably as people have suggested above, no-one expects 11 year olds to have the initiative to get that far into the system without a reason to be there.
and the lack of headcount was bad procedures. just an unfortunate triple-whammy here but sure people will be more careful in future.