Has anything been decided on crew baggage as yet? Will be going through EGLL this weekend and hope they dont try and take away my laptop and mobile. Being an Airbus "bus driver" I've got all my manuals in my laptop, infact in our company we have no paper manuals.

good luck, or better start printing he he he he

Couple of quotes on BBC World today :-

David Learmount saying that if you put a bomb on an a/c, then put it near the front like they did on the Lockerbie a/c, then you only need to make a small hole and the a/c will tear itself apart - I'm sure Mr Terrorist may already know that, but no need to broadcast it right round the world !!

Random BBC Journalist saying that i-pods, walkmans and other RADIOACTIVE devices are not allowed.....

:hmm:

99.9999% of all passengers present no threat to a flight, is it not time that, despite the PC world we live in, that our lords and masters grasp the nettle and accept that passenger/terrorist profiling would be a prime antedote to the current threat. IMHO a husband, wife and two or whatever young children, present no threat to the other passengers on a flight, apart from the noise they produce!

Last time my mother went on holiday, she was singled out for enhanced security screening. 62 years old, white, wife of retired police officer, mother of BA pilot. Obviously easy to mistake her for an Al Qaeda terrorist then..... :rolleyes:

Have heard that some crew aren't even allowed to take calculators and other electronics onboard. Mobile phones allowed though.

Good thing crew don't have access to the aircraft controls!!! Doh! :rolleyes:

If they do that, then the security might be checking up all of our arses, nah i think social profiling etc works to stop the terrorists.

Not so easy to profile. Khalid Muhammed, the mastermind of 9/11, planned on using Asians for his second round of hijackings. He anticipated that the U.S. would be rigorously screening Arabs, and paying less attention to Orientals.

The Chechens are/were fond of using females as terrorists and bombers: it was two rather young females who blew up the two airliners several years ago; nearly half the 41 terrorists in the Moscow theatre gassing were female; almost all the street suicide-bombings in Moscow, including the rock concert, were female bombers.

Palestinians have disguised themselves as Hasidic Jews and blown themselves up.

And Richard Reid was half English, half Jamaican.

Just a thought. I guess all the Duty Free and other shops in the Departure Lounges are closed at present?

No, because I believer you can buy anything airside and take it with you. That is unless you are flying on a flight to the USA.

Are our airports that secure that would prevent bottles containing the suspect liquids from being passed by someone employed on the airside being passed to the individuals who are prepared to blow themselves up with the aircraft? If these individuals are that organised I am sure that possibilty has been thought out.

My friend's name is Mohammed. He is of Pakistani origin, born and raised in Yorkshire and he is Muslim.

Why should he be profiled???

This is just a quick note to say that I have been most impressed today with the way that the BAA team at Gatwick have handled the security alert. I've spent much of the day in the terminal working with our own team and during that time have run into a large number of the BAA senior management and their teams out on the airport concourses talking to and reassuring passengers. Everyone who could be spared - from BAA engineering people, IT staff, management - was out and about to provide a visible presence and armed with a load of plastic bags and information notices to help passengers with the hand baggage restrictions. It even extended to regular bottles of water, chocolate bars and sustenance appearing from behind the BAA scenes to keep check-in and floor staff going whilst they were working to clear the backlog of customers.

The whole effort meant that most airlines (including us) kept their operation going very well in spite of the restrictions. The BAA Gatwick team's spirit and energy which went into keeping today's operations on track was commendable and in the middle of this disruption, should be recognised as a great team effort.

Jonathan Hinkles - Commercial Director, Astraeus

ABC News giving much more detail on this including that 5 further suspects are being sought..though Fox News makes that 10 being sought??

Yes. As mentioned numerous times above, the crew/staff security is just as stringent as that for pax at the moment.

Posting this despite questionable 3rd hand source. It is R&N, after all
from CNN.com

I've posted it before - I'm white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, but I often get "random extra checking" and it doesn't surprise me. I carry a (British) passport that's barely 2 years old but already almost full of Mid-East stamps. I have a beard, and because I work outside a lot in a sunny climate, my skin is usually quite dark.

So I'm "profiled" - I don't mind, it makes sense! It doesn't hurt me or seriously inconvenience me (one less beer in the departure lounge maybe ;) ) and it makes sure that I'm not a Richard Reid (though my beard is usually a lot tidier than his!)

I notice that whilst BA/WW/EZY are cancelling flights in their hundreds the charter airlines soldier on despite in some cases massive delays that will take to next week to cure. Might be bad for their pax but at least they will get to destination. The advantages of crews doing a 2 sector PMI rather than a double PMI/EDI....

It is easy to be cynical about these terror alerts. But there is stuff going on all the time. People may remember these arrests two years ago.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3575106.stm I think their trial is due to start later this year.
I was interviewed by the police about one of the accused and what these people are doing is truely scary.
How they are going about it is even more concerning.

Can I just point out that someone official on TV today said liquids purchased after the security point are to be confiscated at the gate.