Airport security

As some of you know, I’m just back from a week of travel including three flights; Warsaw-London (LOT), London-Budapest (BA), Budapest-Warsaw (LOT). So, in addition to all the other flights I regularly take, I think this gives me sufficient knowledge of the subject to allow me a little pontification, at least from the travellers point of view.

I think we all want to be safe from terrorism and I think we all understand that these people are just doing their job bound by, no doubt, a complicated set of protocols. Also, it’s understood that no airport or person wants to be the one who let the next 9/11 loonies on the plane.

BUT

One can’t help wondering why things can’t be made just a little easier for the millions of perfectly normal, peaceful people who’s lives are handed extra portions of frustration and stress every single day by the current method of moving from check-in to gate. In particular, one has to ask;

1. Why is there such inconsistency? Sometimes I have to remove belt, shoes, etc and sometimes not. Some people allow two items of hand baggage and some only one. There is even inconsistency along one line of security. Leaving Heathrow this week the ‘lunatic fringe’ front line of security guards were so busy forcing a lady to squeeze two bags into one (to comply with the only bag rule) that they missed me with two bags (a briefcase and a small camera bag). I kept going expecting to be pulled up at the next hurdle but I wasn’t. So, apart from the lunatic fringe, who really cares how many bags you’ve got?
2. Why is there such stupidity? Why steal my tiny swiss army knife and then give me steel cutlery when I’m on the plane? Why force a lady to remove her laptop from her briefcase, then stuff her handbag into the briefcase and carry her laptop under one arm and the overstuffed briefcase in the other hand? She’s still carrying the same items through to the plane, just arranged differently for about 30 minutes to keep some faceless bureaucrat happy. That isn’t security, it’s farce!!
3. Why is nothing being done to improve the situation? Where’s the improved detection technology? Where’s the increased numbers of security check lines? Every little helps here. Why can’t we have a machine that allows us to stand there and be scanned top to toe while holding our bag/s, given a green light or perhaps a hand check of anything especially suspicious? Where’s all the chairs to allow us to remove and put back on our shoes? Where’s the benches to allow us to gather our now dispersed belongings back into their original well-ordered configuration?
4. Why is there not more information given to explain why we’re going through all this? Why is a bottle of water so dangerous? Or shaving foam, or perfume? Why are laptops better out of the bag than in the bag? What’s so dangerous about shoes, or belts? Why is my non-beeping watch less interesting than my non-beeping shoes? Even when there are more security lines, why are there so many of them unattended.
5. Why do all the security staff have to be so miserable? Are we not paying their salaries? What gives them the right to behave like the secret police? The odds are MASSIVELY in favour of the person they are dealing with being a perfectly nice human being and not Osama Bin-Liner’s second cousin and yet we are all treated like the latter. Would they not, in fact, be more likely to trip up the loonies with an off-hand casual manner than with stone faces and barked instructions? (Edit: this is not entirely fair. There are some nice ones, just nowhere near enough of them)

The whole thing is a diabolical mess and I, for one, do not consider that the threat of international terrorism, terrible and real as it is, is any kind of excuse for the treatment we paying travellers are getting. It is as if we are not supposed to complain because they’ll just show us pictures of 9/11 and we are humbled and embarrassed into submission. What I’d like to see is a people’s revolution. One day, the entire travelling mass of humanity, worldwide, just drops bags and refuses to pass through security until something is done to improve things. I can dream.

One final airline rant while I’m here. Alcohol. Pray tell me, what is the point of on-board safety demonstrations followed by liberal servings of alcohol to those people you’ve just explained everything to? I lost count years ago of the number of drunk passengers I’ve seen on flights, and these are the people I’m supposed to be relying on to open the over wing doors, or to not trip over and block my exit route, or to do anything vaguely useful in the event of an emergency? Give me a break.