fesmokie

It's Not just The TSA... In 2003/04 there was this Big Afro/Dutch (Gay)Dude at crew customs at EHAM who was patting down your "Junk" back then.

v6g

Maybe it's time for a two-tiered security system at airports, adopting the Ryanair business model.

There should be a premium service, where you experience a full ("deluxe") strip & cavity search - you'd have to pay a hefty fee but it would appeal to those folks who seem to be so terrified of these mythical terrorists that they worry about even stepping out of their house in the morning.

Other airlines, the locos for instance, should have separate terminals with separate screening, a quick, no-frills, cheap affair where you know your chances of being killed by a terrorist are still effectively zero (still significantly less than being killed in a car crash on the way to the airport for instance) but ever so slightly higher. But you also know you and your family won't have to be sexually assaulted or have pornographic images taken of you.

Michael O'Leary would be a good candidate to run such a show. Say what you will about him but he sure knows how to run a cost-efficient enterprise that just about satisfies the average punter.

I say let the free market decide how much relative safety is worth a unit of personal privacy invasion.

d105

The problem is obviously that security does not stop at the passengers on board your aircraft, v6g. If you are willing to get on an insecure aircraft, somehow finding fellow passengers and a crew who agree to that risk, you are still endangering the lives of other people. The random civilians killed at Lockerbie held in mind.

v6g

I'm not suggesting "insecure", merely "less secure" - an alternative air travel service where passengers don't have their genitals fondled and they are allowed to take bottles of water, toothpaste and nailclippers on board.

I am happy to accept the risk of travelling with other people who are armed with nailclippers and deodorant bottles.

I'm also happy to accept the risk of driving to work everyday, even though I've known people who have died in car accidents, and have seen fatal accidents on the very same road that I use every day.

People need some rational perspective.

Alvand

..............

Alvand

YouTube - Hilarious TSA security & airline passenger confrontation

itsresidualmate

"Time it right in China and you get patted down by a member of the opposite sex. So far I have seen no complaints from fellow crew members, in fact ......."

I've spent the past year working at various Scandanavian airports and it's the same here. My Leatherman never comes out it's holster when there's totty on the search,.. 'BEEP'...heh! heh! heh!

Sebastian-PGP

Not flight crew, but absurd nonetheless.

Hey hey, ho ho, TSA has got to go.

A bunch of earmark happy politicians had donors who wanted tax payer stimulus money spent on fancy X ray machines that are really essentially useless because we refuse to do BEHAVIORAL profiling (as we're too stupid to do anything but racial profiling here...the much more effective behavioral kind escapes).

Glad to see the pilots being protected from this nonsense. Still struggling to see the point of irradiating someone who, if he were of the mindset to crash a plane in suicidal fashion, need only click off the FMS, push the yoke forward, and away everyone goes into the great beyond.

teddybear44

I posted on the 'Rumours and news' forum under the same thread as this on there, what I believe the counter argument to aircrew being exempt from ALL screening (which is what it seems some of you wish for). I got banned by the mods for apparently 'shooting from the lip'. This was possibly a reaction to my final posts where I gave them notice to respond (with a substantive argument rather than insults) to the actual logic contained in my counter argument to the apparent desire for blanket exemption from all security screening (It's not jealousy because I as a pax have to go through it). None was forthcoming. However, I note that the pilot who called me a 'fool' had his post stand despite it being well, absurd and intemperate. I was taught by my teachers and parents that to call someone a 'fool' was the height of rudeness. I also thought personal insults were against the forum rules but whilst I got a ban this posters contribution remains. Anyway, my argument against opening up another risk dimension by virtue of exempting a community of tens of thousands from any form of search, is still posted there (thank you mods).