Petition to remove liquids restriction for UK aircrew
To apply the rules differently to aircrew would be saying "I trust aircrew and distrust passengers". History shows that this is not necessarily a valid assumption, so whatever rules are applied should be applied to all IMHO.
PDR
PDR
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To apply the rules differently to aircrew would be saying "I trust aircrew and distrust passengers". History shows that this is not necessarily a valid assumption, so whatever rules are applied should be applied to all IMHO.
PDR
PDR
The notion and logic of your position is that the authorities attribute an EQUAL amount of mistrust for operational crew as with their passengers would then also surely follow that those same untrustworthy crew should never be let near an aircraft in any other capacity than as a passenger themselves, after all, as you have stated they can't be trusted anymore than a passenger.
The very act of security screening for liquid unpleasantness can't and never will detect an individual's desire or impede their ability to cause harm.
Gender Faculty Specialist
Why not look more closely at passengers? I trust my fellow pilots more than I trust any passenger. I reiterate that I, we, are NOT more likely to kill you because we've got 110ml of water.
PDR1,
Aircrew would still have to go through security screening, so we would still be mistrusted and. This is not a binary situation.
Strangely most passengers trust us just enough to put their lives in our hands, despite having seen one suicidal pilot.
Aircrew would still have to go through security screening, so we would still be mistrusted and. This is not a binary situation.
Strangely most passengers trust us just enough to put their lives in our hands, despite having seen one suicidal pilot.
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I am all for exemptions for pilots. The fact of the matter is those technicians, ATCO's, cleaners, rangers, psa's, dispatchers and security people can ;shift permitting; go landside and fill their boots with whatever food they want.
Pilots on the other hand cannot pop landside as by definition we are either airside or in the air.
The fact that the poor germanwings fellow committed mass murder has no relevance to the liquid debate
Pilots on the other hand cannot pop landside as by definition we are either airside or in the air.
The fact that the poor germanwings fellow committed mass murder has no relevance to the liquid debate
I fear the petition will do nothing at all. I do think restrictions should be lifted though.
To the person saying that "pilots can afford to buy a bottle of water from boots or their latte from Costa".
A significant portion of pilots are in the position of having to pay by training loans amounting to £24,000 per year. Plus, probably, rent in the South East. Add food and transport to the equation, and that alone would require a minimum after-tax income of around the mid-£30k. Which is more than many will actually be getting.
To the ones saying everyone should be subject to the same rules. No they shouldn't. As aircrew, I have undergone significantly more robust background checks than someone who bought a ticket on the internet. If I am trusted to have an unescorted airside pass, I should be trusted enough to take a 500ml bottle of diet coke in my flight bag, or a tin of soup, or a 350ml bottle of shampoo for my 5 nights away in another base, without having to pay premium prices the other side of security. If crew got supermarket prices on all items of food/drink, then maybe the rules would be a little more reasonable, but they're as much as 4x more expensive.
To those saying "what about the other workers, why should it just be for pilots", well this is (supposed to be) a professional pilots forum. Not an airport firefighters message board, or a radar controllers chat room. I welcome non-pilots to this forum, and have nothing against them at all, but why take it so personally that it was a petition for aircrew on an aircrew forum?!
The liquids law was only ever a short term reaction to a particular incident, but someone up the chain of command seemed to forget about it and so it's stayed in place ever since.
It's outdated, the threats have changed, there are much greater dangers than people smuggling liquid explosives through.
It's a UK problem this crew security ruling, everywhere else has seen common sense. Many countries don't even have restrictions on passengers carrying liquids.
A few months ago I had to surrender an empty water bottle at crew security which I had managed to take through plenty of times before. It was a liquids container larger than 100ml I was told. Which technically was correct, although containing absolutely no liquid (it was bone dry) it kind of was irrelevant. The rest of my liquids complied, all in containers less than 100ml, in a resealable clear bag.
The fact I would have been able to buy a 2 litre bottle of water as soon as I was through security (and if I wanted to, could have poured the entire contents on the floor) and thus had my large liquids container seemed not to convince the jobsworth security officer to let me keep it. So I left it with her, as she proceeded to get into an argument with the cabin manager from another airline behind me whose spaghetti bolognese was "too liquidy" or some *****.
Anyone who thinks that the liquids laws, particularly on crew (or any airside worker), are a sensibly implemented idea, is, quite frankly, a moron.
To the person saying that "pilots can afford to buy a bottle of water from boots or their latte from Costa".
A significant portion of pilots are in the position of having to pay by training loans amounting to £24,000 per year. Plus, probably, rent in the South East. Add food and transport to the equation, and that alone would require a minimum after-tax income of around the mid-£30k. Which is more than many will actually be getting.
To the ones saying everyone should be subject to the same rules. No they shouldn't. As aircrew, I have undergone significantly more robust background checks than someone who bought a ticket on the internet. If I am trusted to have an unescorted airside pass, I should be trusted enough to take a 500ml bottle of diet coke in my flight bag, or a tin of soup, or a 350ml bottle of shampoo for my 5 nights away in another base, without having to pay premium prices the other side of security. If crew got supermarket prices on all items of food/drink, then maybe the rules would be a little more reasonable, but they're as much as 4x more expensive.
To those saying "what about the other workers, why should it just be for pilots", well this is (supposed to be) a professional pilots forum. Not an airport firefighters message board, or a radar controllers chat room. I welcome non-pilots to this forum, and have nothing against them at all, but why take it so personally that it was a petition for aircrew on an aircrew forum?!
The liquids law was only ever a short term reaction to a particular incident, but someone up the chain of command seemed to forget about it and so it's stayed in place ever since.
It's outdated, the threats have changed, there are much greater dangers than people smuggling liquid explosives through.
It's a UK problem this crew security ruling, everywhere else has seen common sense. Many countries don't even have restrictions on passengers carrying liquids.
A few months ago I had to surrender an empty water bottle at crew security which I had managed to take through plenty of times before. It was a liquids container larger than 100ml I was told. Which technically was correct, although containing absolutely no liquid (it was bone dry) it kind of was irrelevant. The rest of my liquids complied, all in containers less than 100ml, in a resealable clear bag.
The fact I would have been able to buy a 2 litre bottle of water as soon as I was through security (and if I wanted to, could have poured the entire contents on the floor) and thus had my large liquids container seemed not to convince the jobsworth security officer to let me keep it. So I left it with her, as she proceeded to get into an argument with the cabin manager from another airline behind me whose spaghetti bolognese was "too liquidy" or some *****.
Anyone who thinks that the liquids laws, particularly on crew (or any airside worker), are a sensibly implemented idea, is, quite frankly, a moron.
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It's only the UK and Australia who have these ridiculous rules still in place for operating crew, in the US I can go through without taking off shoes, jackets, belts and anything out of my bag and have large bottles of water.
Australia I would say is worse than the UK at being over zealous and ridiculous with its screening, it's the only destination where crew mandatory have to go through the new X-ray scanners, if something doesn't have a lid it's confiscated even if it's under 100ml and I had toothpaste confiscated because it was in oz instead of ml.
Australia I would say is worse than the UK at being over zealous and ridiculous with its screening, it's the only destination where crew mandatory have to go through the new X-ray scanners, if something doesn't have a lid it's confiscated even if it's under 100ml and I had toothpaste confiscated because it was in oz instead of ml.
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I don't think anyone would disagree that the 'liquids rule' is daft and a waste of everyone's time.
But the way to address that is to lobby remove the restrictions entirely, not to carve-out exemptions for self-selecting entitled groups.
But the way to address that is to lobby remove the restrictions entirely, not to carve-out exemptions for self-selecting entitled groups.
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So I'm stuck in a security queue for 10-15 mins whilst a contingent of Border Force proceed to load around 20 boxes each containing 24 cans of coke! When I asked te security operative how come they are allowed to take all that through and yet I can not take a bottle of water or a carton of milk, the response was - they have an exemption for tools of the trade, i.e. liquids, since when has a can of coke been deemed tools of the trade!!! His answer, it's a joke really! I have tools of the trade on my pass, yes but that only allows things like leatherman, hammer, screwdrivers etc not liquids. What a joke.
Gender Faculty Specialist
A small(ish), regional, international, airport in the south (UK) wouldn't allow our company based engineers to take a pint of milk through security so they could make their regular cups of tea. No, no...they had to take four pints through to prove that they were really making tea with it.
