Melbourne International Terminal 'evacuated'

[Hempy]

Screening ****-up 8:45 on a Sunday morning..

Ms Gillett said the evacuation was “procedural” and done only as a precaution.

“There’s no danger posed to anyone, there’s absolutely no risk,” she said.

I'd probably rather hear "We eventually caught the bad guy who attempted to slip through security, sorry for the delay..."

Are we going to have to put up with this rubbish forever or will common sense eventually prevail?

[framer]

Someone obviously made a mistake. Maybe one of the customs officers forgot they were at work and spoke politely to a traveller or security personal forgot to check inside a pilots hat? Either of those two things would be such a departure from the norm that rescreening would definitely be warranted.

[Qantas 787]

These 'mistakes' keep happening far too regularly - delays up to 5 hours today.

The airlines should send the security company the bill - and then the passengers can also add any additional costs they have endured.

[falconx]

We had china, New Zealand and United in front of us on the taxiway for 2+ hours

[Ngineer]

Maybe one of the customs officers forgot they were at work and spoke politely to a traveller

What, do you mean they have the capcity to be polite whilst off duty? I surely cannot abide those creatures.

[BDLBOS]

Not a good day for the Airport. I was on the EK406 to AKL, which was already 4 hours late. Around 0855 we were told we had to go back through screening, something had happened and an individual had managed to get through the screening checks. All gates were full, so in bounds were parked where they could go. Lucky for me they found a gate for the EK as soon as it landed, not so lucky were the CZ, MU, QF, UA, SQ and NZ guys. Problem then was that all staff and equipment were out of position and working like crazy. Due to lack of equipment our revised departure time of 1215, ended up being 1430. Compared with the EWR fiasco 4 years ago, yep was in that one too, this was handled well. I do question the number of pax that had to be re-screened, they say 1700, I would say double that.

I arrived safely in AKL, that is the critical thing.

[SOPS]

It's just all mad. Did anyone get screened getting on the bus/taxi/train that took them too the airport? Talk about complete overkill and smoke screen.

[ratpoison]

"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it or their revolutionary right to dismember it or overthrow it." -- Abraham Lincoln, 4 April 1861

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

-- Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759.

Government is actually the worst failure of civilized man. There has never been a really good one, and even those that are most tolerable are arbitrary, cruel, grasping and unintelligent. -- H. L. Mencken

[Qantas 787]

Security is a joke - if it takes this long to identify a problem, evacuate everyone and reprocess, the bad guys are laughing. The security who caused the problem are then meant to try and organise all the stranded people - all you saw last night on the news was the lack of organisation, no messages (probably blame the airport), queues outside the front door.........