Stansted Security -Plastic Bag "Advisory"
 

I'm all for security and common sense checks - it's accepted as part of flying life.
I now have to travel through Stansted airport every week. Shown below is text relating to how liquids are to be carried on board in hand-luggage. It is copied direct from the Stansted website:

"...They must be carried separately in a single bag which is:
Transparent and resealable
No larger than 20cm x 20cm (8in x 8in)
Able to close properly with all the items inside...."

My plastic bag, which I have used without any problem since these regulations came into force and for the last four months travelling weekly through Stansted, was today held up by a security person and proclaimed "unallowable". The reason? It is zipped shut which apparently, is now "verboten". So p****d- off was I at this latest piece of ignorance and stupidity, which cost me a rather nice xmas pressie smellies bottle from my Mum, I counted to ten and made my way to the control desk. The resident uniformed person gave me an unctuous explanation about how the new test was: "the bag must be able to be pressed together with no air being obviously expelled".
As one can see from the above text, no such test is mentioned on the website.
Will this madness ever stop?

I'd highly recommend writing a letter, the whole idea of the plastic bag is so that the items are visible. You've not detracted from that.
Would be interesting to see what the final answer is about that.

Zip up transparent cases such as pencil cases (which I used for years) have been banned for crews at Gatwick for a few months now.

When I queried this I was told that they would be banned for passengers in the near future

OK, I'll volunteer to ask the dumb question:- If sealing the plastic bag with a zipper (where a ridge is pressed between two others and has been the standard way of sealing plastic bags for two decades or more) HOW do they want the bag sealed?

Since they state "Able to close properly with all the items inside...." are they happy with a twist closure? ANY method of sealing a plastic bag will expel air. Since you are standing over it, any malign substance would affect you as well.

Sheesh.

A perfectly airtight, resealable clear plastic bag...are they having a giraffe? :ugh:

Write them a letter and ask what they actually mean , then let the rest if us know cos I'm sure if STN do it today the other BAA places will be doing it soon and I can't figure what plastic bag would actually fit that description.

Utterly moronic. However the one good thing about BAA and Gatwick is the free bag they hand out before security. I grabbed five ages ago and still use the first.

I've never put my insulin in a plastic bag and nobody has ever said anything - Sweden, Belgium, France, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, US, Spain, Canary Islands LHR or LGW or dununda or in Singapore. I will avoid Stansted, Birmingham and Manchester though because of their reputations.

Political Masters
 

I would suggest that an enquiry of the Minister with DIRECT responsibility for said regulations, copied to his/her Opposition counterpart and your local MP and perhaps even the MP for Stansted is called for

If nothing else you may get four pieces of toilet paper in return ;):D

PZULBA - Out of Africa (Retired)

I have written a polite note to Stansted Customer Relations asking why and when this requirement was imposed. In addition, I have asked why the requirement is not specified on their official website

I will post the reply here when I get it ;)

More lunacy from the authorities of 'Monkey Island', as the UK is lovingly known in much of Europe.

The requirement has *always* been there since the liquid ban was introduced.

All liquids to be placed in a resealable bag whose dimesnsions are prescribed and must be of clear plastic. It doesn't matter under the rules that you have one item that is < 100ml as the rules say they must be in the bag above. The facr that some airports are lax on the rules the DFT brought in is also of some minor concern. How hard is it to put your gear into one bag, picked up free from any BAA airport?

Being called "monkey island" from an economic basket case like Portugal isn't quite as clever as you might wish mon ami. Has the IMF pitched up yet?

Um.. you might like to check the veracity of that statement re BAA Stansted...

Well as least we have nice weather :E

Skipness One Echo : Pot ... kettle .... black?

I spend a fair amount of time in Portugal and in most respects it compares more than favourably with the UK. It may not have a great economy but the UK's is not exactly in great shape either.

Service delivery and the infrastructure in Portugal are possibly not as sophisticated as the UK but things work better, people are a damn sight more pleasant and relaxed, there is relatively little crime outside of certain areas which are know to be dodgy, meals in restaurants are good and inexpensive, and generally things work. If I had a free choice between living in GB or Portugal ... it wouldn't be GB!

Just before this gets nasty, the UK is known as 'Monkey Island' by many Europeans, due to many things that appear very strange to outsiders, such as this latest STN action.

Monkey Island was a very popular computer game, where the hero had to work his way though a mysterious environment, to win the heart of his beloved.

So it is not intended to be nasty and my use reflects the trouble Strake encountered in getting a reasonable explanation.

Absolutely right, please accept my apologies, I should know better.
Enough of the monkeying about.....

I haven't flown through STN since October. Have they begun charging?
LGW was free last week, (ex BAA I know), LHR free too.

Skipness

No apology needed, I had assumed that the M.I. joke was common knowledge in the UK, as well, but it obviously is not and could sound rude without context.

I thought your reply was quite funny.

Plastic bags were free at STN last month ..

JdS I've lived in the UK a fair old while and never heard the M.I. ref. When I heard it, I thought of Gibraltar, even though it's not an island, but it has monkeys.

Personally, I think it's very funny to think of Europeans referring to us in that way. We are a nation that is changing fairly rapidly, both over the last 50 years and in the next 50 I'm sure. No nation can back to what it was - although many say they want that perceived security and many politicians say that they will provide it. Naturally, it is impossible and so we get an even stranger mess!

PAXboy.............

They are actually APES (Barbary) on LXGB not monkeys!!:ok:

Got bit by one when posted out there:}

VEEPS

Going through STN early December a rather loud female security officer was shouting repeatedly that they didn't give out free bags anymore and that any liquids found not in a bag would be destroyed. The only solution was to exit the queue, get scanned back out then buy a bag (oh you do get three of them in a the pack!) for £1 from a machine that looked rather like an old fashioned bubble gum dispenser. All because I forgot that the little jar of handcream I bought landside counted as liquids.

Then back in the queue for another 25 minutes - my own error but altogether hardly customer friendly.

The Germans sometimes call the British "Inseln Affen", or Island Apes, but I've never heard Britain called Monkey Island either.

I don't think that this is quite as friendly.

Paxboy, most people are not anti British, we just find things a little 'different', sometimes. Probably it works both ways, as our own cultures are transparent to us.

For example, Paris Match once published an article that concluded the Brits were a little unpredictable and slightly exciting race, based on 'evidence' such as a positive correlation between rainfall and the purchase of open top cars, according to the magazine.

In Portugal, grown men fight bulls by shouting at them and then jumping on to their bodies, but this is completely normal, you understand ;)

Andrew Boyer, welcome and thank you for confirming that I wasn't hearing things when told to "go and buy a bag" by Stansted security.

To continue the thread drift for a moment, as I am in Germany (East) I decided to ask a work colleague about "Island Monkey's" at dinner last night. I think it's fair to say that "Inselaffes" or Island Apes is a derogatory term in the manner of Krauts or Squareheads. As seen with the recent Wikileaks saga, it would appear we all like to gossip, bitch and generally be mildly rude about people who are different to us. As far as I and my German colleague were concerned, we laughed and sank another couple of beers together.

Thanks for joining me in Mokeying around with the thread. http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/sr...ies/tongue.gif

I particularly liked the reference to open topped cars and rain. All nations do indeed make fun of others and I enjoyed my time working in Germany and could see what a great sense of humour the Germans have.

VP8 I appreciate the correction, even as I wrote it my mind was thinking they were not monkeys but was too lazy to check Wikipedia. But am embarrassed that I did not know my Apes from my Monkeys ... :uhoh:

[That, for non UK folks is a play on words with the colloquial phrase to state that someone does not know what they are doing. We say: 'He does not know his @rse from his elbow'.] I guess I'd better go an do some work now. :sad:

The Inselaffes remark has been around for years and when I first heard it almost 25 years ago I too joined in the laughter and sank a few more beers.

I tend also to agree that Europeans are not anti British, (English perhaps but not the rest of us.).

I also find it amusing that Britain is so anti Europe and in particular their currency. If a Euro is worth 85p when Ireland, Greece, Portugal and Spain are in trouble, then I shudder to think what it would be worth if they were not. The £ is not just the sick currency of Europe but almost worthless elsewhere.

The situation as described at STN is shocking on many levels and again highlights the ludicrous regulation that is due to be repealled in the next year but also at the continuing incompetance and greed of the BAA.

They weren't on November 6th!

I know this because my partner was turned away from security there and referred to a coin operated machine that dispenses 3 bags for a £1 a'la Luton style.

Times have indeed changed at London's third airport.

You have been warned.

London's third airport or third world airport? Though that could apply to LHR and LGW, too.

While travelling through Stansted airport on the 25th of December free plastic zip-lock bags were not available and a note on the desk of Security person checking boarding passes informed personnel that Boots was no longer selling plastic bags and to please stop referring passengers to Boots.

I had no problems with my liquids in a bag like this: http://www.muji.eu/pages/online.asp?...ub=79&PID=3402
but the bag was barely half full.

And on return to Stansted, the immigration officer had his feet on his desk. Welcome to Monkey Island!

Paxboy wrote: I enjoyed my time working in Germany and could see what a great sense of humour the Germans have.

Well I lived and worked in Germany from 1968 to 1993 and always wondered where they kept their sense of humour, now I know why I never saw a trace of it..... Paxboy had it !

OFSO

If you compare the attitude of the average UK member of airport security staff with their counterparts in virtually every other European country, you'll typically find that the most unpleasant people are to be found in Britain. Furthermore, the powers that these unpleasant, odious numpties have are virtually unchallengeable because of the "Police State" created by that equally foul Tony Blair. I'll only tolerate one air journey a year because that's all I can stand. Our security system is only window dressing because those who seek to do us harm just have make it past the holes left by the uniformed idiots. Furthermore, to do us real harm, all they have to do is threaten us and our own government aided and abetted by DfT, Transec and the muppets at the airports, will do the damage for them.

As for sealable bags, they nobody really cares. Just so long as "security" look like they are doing something nothing will ever happen. There will only ever be more and more pointless security because big business is now making a packet out of the system. I wouldn't put it past them to finance the bad guys so they can sell some more equipment. You don't believe me? How about the very miss-quoted comment made by Jo Moore "...a good day to bury bad news" (she actually wrote "It's now a very good day to get out anything we want to bury") and remember who she worked for and in which government department? Complain by not travelling.

PM

Breath is still being held ............

Just WHAT is wrong with the common or garden Ziploc bag ?

I have a free bag given away by Los Angeles security staff, it doesn't lock, pity I didn't grab a handful, and UK security can get stuffed if it isn't good enough ?

I've had enough.

( oh ! really officer ? why don't you put your head inside it and I'll show you if it seals or not. )

Well, I checked my email this morning and guess what? Yep, nothing.

So, I've sent a reminder :p

For clarity, I would state that I was not using a "Ziplok" bag but a "zipped bag" with said zip running across the top from end to end. Whilst a lawyer (or come to think of it, a security screener) might have fun with the definitions, any reasonable person would accept that my bag exactly met the requirement as stated on the Stansted website for liquids bags: "Transparent, resealable and able to close properly". I have used the same bag at Stansted and indeed around the world for the last two or three years without any problem.
Interestingly, a chap behind me in the line (having witnessed my irritation) said he had been pulled up by Stansted security some months ago because his bag wasn't transparent...it had "Waitrose" written on the front.

If it is a bag closed with a zipper :
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ylonzipper.jpg
I can understand - that would not give a seal.
A very rare occasion when I side with security!

Totally different from a ziploc zip (TM)
http://www.ziploc.com/Products/Publi...eezer_Pint.jpg

STN clearly state:

BillS. Where does it "clearly state" what you wrote above?

BAA Stansted: Hand baggage

BillS

If you look carefully on the front of the Ziploc box, you will see the words "double zipper", so I repectfully suggest that your post is bolleaux, mind you, if STN is short of a few highly trained security peeps, they might welcome someone like you to their ranks, as you seem to have a creative mind.

From the Oxford Dictionary, the definition of the word 'seal.' (Not the large sea thingy.)

From the same source, here is the definition of impervious

If Stansted require the bag to be impervious, they need to state this, since the word is ambiguous. If they require the bag to be hermetically sealed, they need to say so,

One of these days, someone with some free time and a sense of humour is going to sue their airline for breach of contract, as the airline collect the security charge and require the pax to comply with it. If the pax complies with the notice, as Strake obviously did, then the airline is liable for the subsequent losses in my opinion, which is that of a commercial officer, not a lawyer.

Inseln Affen, indeed (at least the STN security people, not most Brits, who are nice people.)

"and the bag must be sealed"
STN airport guide - security
@joao
Many thanks for those OE definitions - exactly my point.:ok:

A "zipper" of the type depicted in the first image of my post (and I did say "if" that was the type used) would not "seal" the bag. It would not prevent any liquid leakage.
The ziploc "zipper" (TM) or "smart zip" would, if sealed, prevent liquid loss.

Certain fluids leaking within security equipment could compromise its effectiveness. I can understand why they might insist upon a sealed bag as defined in the OE dictionary - rendered impervious to liquids - not allowing liquid to pass through.

Not bolleaux - just English, I'm afraid!

There are many things very wrong with UK airport security and its implementation - but lets pick the issues that are wrong.

BillS

Enjoy your bananas.

BillS

Sorry old boy but that isn't the BAA Stansted website. It's some ersatz version that makes money out of people clicking on it when they put "Stansted" into Google. :ok:

Couple of points: 1. If a bag is resealable, then it must have been sealed in the first place :8

2. If you read far enough on the official Stanstead site, you will find "Security FAQs" and at the very end it says - (my emphasis)

Rest of BS snipped.