UK Airport Security
 

What can we do to improve UK airport security?

Do you really think all the increased security measures brought in by the DfT over the last 6 months have done anything other than doubling staff work loads and the queues at most outbound controls across the UK!? As well as being a pain in the :mad: for staff and crews!

Another case of Airport Security being more about PR than actual security?

I'm not really sure what the answer is. . . .do you?:confused:

Double the numbers and double the pay. It may then attract people capable of doing the job.:ugh:

Would a national homelands security be the answer to get this increase in pay and increase in numbers? Rather than leave it in the hands of the profit making private companies?

:confused:

I think a big step forward would be passenger profiling (screw equal rights, lets start being realistic and deal with the issue).

we don't need any more numbers -and we certainly don't want security officers to be civil servants on final salary pensions that we'll have to fund.

A sensible and joined-up government security policy might be a starting point. We're sick of different rules at each airport. And why does the ban on liquids apply only to air travel? If there really is a threat, how come you can carry gallons of liquid aboard any bus, train or ship, no questions asked?

one could easily misidentify the "different rules at different airports" scenario as "make up the rules as you go along". A good example is the "toothpaste knicking brigade" in MAN.

catch me if you can
 

I can't take 150ml of orange squash to flavour my free water through security but I am allowed to propel a missile with 20000 litres of kerosene in any direction I please. What sense is there in the security system that allows such ridiculous anomolies?

I'm not sure about the idea of security officers being civil servants either, but how else are we going to get a consistant service / standard at all UK airports? It's never going to happen while private security companies are involved and it's up to the airports to 'interpret' the DfT regs - which seems to end up in them all doing totally differnt things!

For info Petition on the 10 Downing Street site...:)

javascript:ol('http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/airportsecurity/');

anomalies? No, its just the lack of screening, training and profiling (through no fault of the security personnel) which is allowing this to continue.

"anomalies? No, its just the lack of screening, training and profiling (through no fault of the security personnel) which is allowing this to continue."

OK I get where your coming from - but is it not the governments responsibility to ensure the standards are maintained and developed?

PS did you know security officers have approx 5 seconds to screen each bag that goes through an x-ray. . . .and airports still aren't happy with the pax throughput!?:\

To be honest, its the government's lack of foresight and "burrying its head in the sand hoping the problem will just go away" that got us into this mess to begin with.

I think the example from the US has proven the answer to that to be a resounding "no". Most security staff in the UK and mainland Europe seem fairly friendly if just as strict.

Profiling and identification of frequent fliers.
 

There are lots of passenger who fly infrequently but the average "Bum on seat" is a frequent flier. I have been flying an average of 4 per week for over 20years. Sure, I could flip anytime, I could be a sleeper serving my 25yrs of good behaviour planning for the big one but in reality if you could pull up my travel profile (not my racial profile) and be sure it is me then you can transfer a lot of your effort elsewhere because I am just not high risk.
I remember getting a hard time leaving Israel once, I blew my top in the end and said "I have only got one small bag, why do you not just take it apart!", the reply was "Our aim is not to keep weapons off planes, our aim is to keep terrorists off planes".
In my case the hard time came about not because of skin colour but because I was a Brit living in France, travelling back via Zurich, instead of the Paris flight, Kuwaiti stamps in passport, just met with one of their professors who computes reliability of weapons systems etc., etc., I think they were right to pick me frankly!

Exactly - and this is what the politically correct tossers running our government (well, not only ours.....:( ) deliberately forget. :ugh:

I just thought - the Govt could easily kill 2 birds with one stone! Passenger profiling could easily be made to get rid of a large percentage of air travellers. Hey presto! No need for "green" taxes!
They should pay me for the stuff I come up with...:8

Its all a pointless exercise. No one else gives a sh1t. I have just travelled allover the world and only had to show any liquids at LHR outbound. Noone else , gives a sh1t. I was half as crew and jhalf as pax. I got more grief as crew ex uk than pax inbound to uk.

No one else will green tax pax to fly either. No one else gives a sh1t.

In case Anyone missed my point as pax we are shafted , as crew we are doubly shafted as noone else gives a sh1t.
Pointless starting threads about it. We should all just down tools for a day at a time until its changed.
Oh and yank pilots can jumpseat home from the uk on production of their ud. Go figure

Last week my neighbour flew back from India with a nice view of the cockpit thanks to the door being wide open most of the flight. Even he could see the irony when I told him about all of us in the UK with our locked cockpit doors, and no explosive water through security shambles!

How's about this for an alternative?

1) Be as nice and polite as you can possible can be.
2) Do everything asked of you.
3)As you are queing at the gate, be grateful that in your job, u don't have to put up with as much **** as the operatives who are screening you do.
4) Remember that you are not important, you are just an ordinary person flying on an ordinary flght and consequently, are subject to whatever Government Restrictions pertain at the time.
5) Remember that, if these restrictions were not in place and your flight was hi jacked, you'd be the first to squeal and litigate like a stuck pig!
6) Remember, that you are a very ordinary airline user, you deserve no worse than the best security restrictions for the benefit of yourdelf and your fellow passengers.

Hmm - a Spin Doctor!

Can't think somehow that convincing ourselves that everything is lovely will improve things.

How can we improve it?

Perhaps stop pax who set of the explosive trace detector? Instead of filling in a wee form & letting them through.

Madness