Potential Security Weakness?
Is this a weakness in security procedure, or was the correct procedure not followed...?
I was on a flight travelling from Manchester, UK to Amsterdam a week ago. We were on the runway in Manchester (A319) awaiting the doors being closed, then one of the passengers alerted the stewardess and said that she needs to get off the plane and can't fly.
The passenger was allowed to get off, then the stewardess came down the aisle of the full plane and, one by one, took out each bag in the overhead bins and asked the passengers to identify it as theirs. This went one for quite some time as some passengers had headphones on and where not really paying attention. Once she was satisfied that all the bags in the overhead bins had been identified as theirs by one of the passengers on the plane, we took off and had an uneventful short flight over to Amsterdam.
So, is this acceptable practice?
What about if this passenger gets on the plane with something illegal in their pocket, (e.g. drugs), and puts them in someone else's (distinctive, bright red) bag whist it's up in the overhead bin? They then text their friend at the destination airport and ask them to look out for the passenger coming through arrivals with the bright red bag as the drugs are in there.
Did this UK 'budget' airline just skip procedure in order to stick to their schedule, or is this actually a loophole we have here?