Razor gangs hit Broome?
 

I fly a lot - Oz domestic at least twice a week at the moment. Leaving Broome last week was a new experience for me.

Going through the security check, I put my laptop and mini iFad in trays to go through the X-ray, along with my carry-on bag.

The following conversation ensued with the security person:

Security: "What's that in your pocket"?
Me: "My wallet"!

(Now, I may have thought, "Nothing, I am just pleased to see you", would have been an interesting retort, but given the security person wasn't appropriate!)

Security: "It has to go through X-ray"!
Me: "Huh, you want to X-ray my wallet"?
Security: "It has to go through X-ray! You could have razor blade in your wallet"!
Me, chucking my wallet into a tray: "Go for your life. It will be a new experience for my wallet. I travel a lot and it has never been X-rayed before".
Security:"You could have razor blade"!

I was actually early for my flight and after an hour or so sitting on the secure side of departures we were all kicked out for the lunch break and had to go through security again.

Same wallet, same pocket, same me - apparently the risk of razor laden wallets had declined as I went straight through security with no further fuss!

Oh dear!

Dr :8

Used to hate having to stop in there, some of the ground staff seemed to go out of their way to give us a hard time. That was 10 years ago, shame nothing has changed.

Sounds like a New Australian from the sub-contintent speaking Australians. :cool:

This bit got me thinking. What does lunch time have to do with being on the secure side?

wallet
 

fwiw I ALWAYS CHUCK MY WALLET IN THE TRAY TO PREVENT THE BOFFINS HAVING THEIR MOMENT OF IMPORTANCE.

In the past when I have put my wallet in the tray, I have had it handed back to me!

Hope it doesn't contain a significant amount of cash, the screeners will help themselves given half a chance

I empty everything in my pockets deep into my carry-on bag.Means no-one (other pax or anyone else) can casually swipe anything off the tray while walking past if I'm held up going through the scanner.

I got asked for it the other day in Karratha - said yeah it's in my pocket - no has to go in the tray - interdasting.

First time in a crapload of flights.

Plus you're not likely to leave anything behind in the tray.

If you think that having to pull out your wallet is slightly onerous, a little birdie told me that a raft of new measures are coming shortly for checking of carry-on baggage.

You won't notice what they are doing as you pass through, but the back-end systems to support this initiative will be very complex and are still under development.

I sincerely hope we are all safer as a result as I sometimes get the feeling that the current scanners aren't infallible. The checked baggage scanning is also quite a complex system and very efficient as I've never seen it hold up a flight.

It is probably the focus point of the local security manager. I always had a private chuckle when operating through Rockhampton having operated through many other Australian and international ports. RK focus was lids on spray cans : deodorants, hair sprays etc. if didn't have a lid it was confiscated. Under the counter of the checkin area were boxes of lidless spray cans. Only place in world that had such a focus!

Actually aerosols without lids are picked up at all domestic airports in Aus now. I've found that if you leave it in your checked bag they ask you to take it out so that they can verify if there is a lid on it. Last week I was at Cooly and the console operator said they she could not verify if my aerosol had a lid on it so take it out.

I went through an airport security screening point in civvies once.

Even though I showed complete disdain to the 'goons', raised an eyebrow when they asked me if I had undergone an explosive trace detection test before (having even put the latest copy of "Flying" magazine through the x-ray machine along with my car keys that had little metal airplanes attached to the key ring!), huffing and snorting every step of the way they didn't get who I was!? (By the way I would of worn my ASIC as I usually do yet alas it had been stolen from my car the night before!)

They only twigged when while confiscating my can of 'Impulse' (Tease), sans lid, one of them saw the collection of comfy ladies underwear in my man bag that they realized I was indeed an aviator.

I always get 10 minutes of "me time"" when my First Mate of 40 odd years has to pass through "security screening".
She has a knee replacement and a metal plate in her upper arm as a result of a bike accident.

I can always count on the alarm and lights going off so I can look forward to some "me time" as the First Mate will have to remove her belt (plastic but looks metallic), shoes, jacket, etc. and walk back through the doorway without a door and once again have the alarm and lights go off.

But most of the "me time" in interrupted by some friendly security person who wants to rub a little piece of "paper" on a what looks like a selfie stick all over my goods and chattels. It may even be a small camera on the end of that stick. It must not be a very good camera, if that what it is, because when they put it in the developing machine, they never get a good result, at least they never show me the photo, if that is what was.

Anyway, back to the First Mate. By this time, after explaining in great where and why the various bits of foreign material has been secreted in her limbs, a member of the security staff, who is of the same gender, (can we be sure in this day and age with all the various genders out there) has been summoned to do a frisk search.

This has been the procedure for about the last 5/6 years.

But the last time when I was looking forward to meeting the security staff with the selfie stick, I was thwarted as the alarms and lights did NOT go off when the First Mate walked through the doorway that has no door.

:confused:

Comedian Calls Out TSA for Not Actually Stopping Terrorists | WIRED

My YouTube cut and paste is acting funny, but that article contains the video. I know it's for the USA, but it's essentially the same here...

There was a time, a few years ago, when four G.A. aircraft arrived together at YPKG from YFRT. All were heading to Perth airfields for the last of the Red Bull Air Races there.


(A couple of Moonies; a Rockwell Commander and a Bonanza.)


After refuelling, we all wandered up to the terminal for a coffee and a bite to eat. For it was lunchtime.


Departure from the terminal was more complex than before. (In the past, there was a door that lead out on to the airfield for people such as us. No more as it was locked.) We all had to be screened. I failed the tests. Very pissed off, I was prepared to strip off to naked to prove that I wasn't a threat. Fortunately that provoked security to let me through on to the tarmac. :ok:

Or you could have just gone through the gate at the GA apron in front of the aero club?

Ask the QLink Q400 PIC who cracked it at security and decided to strip down to his jocks how that worked out for him.

One screened airport I've been to has metal detectors, dozens of security numpties, a 200m 12' high razor wire fence surrounding the terminal. Around the rest of the airport boundary? A 3' sheep fence. Makes you wonder why people would go to the trouble of climbing the razor wire, when they can walk 100m in either direction and step over the fence.

The entire thing is a theatrical farce.