Airport security people - rant!

[Globalti]

*rant mode on*

"Please help to reduce the number of security alerts by keeping your luggage with you at all times" they broadcast this at Manchester every ten minutes, trying to con the public into thinking that security alreats happen several times a week. FFS when was the last security alert at Manchester? Who do thse muppets think we are? Then there's the actual security check - designed for nothing other than to make passengers to feel better because as we have all read in the press, reporters have succeeded time and again in smuggling dodgy items through and in any case if you were seriously intent on blowing up a plane, would you try to carry the bomb in your case? No, you'd get a job at the airport, work there a few months until you knew how the place worked then get it in through the back door or hidden in a consignment of goods for the rip-off shops inside. Remember that case a few years ago where the young guys got into a BA plane at Heathrow? They were able to film themselves larking around in the cabin and publish the film. I bet it wouldn't be much harder to do even now; all you've got to do is wear a flourescent jacket and everybody will assume you're an official.

Grrrrrr!

*rant off*

 

[PaulB]

Don't get me started about these power-crazed idiots! They drive me mad every time I fly and Manchester is particularly bad. I once roundly ignored the silly bint handing out those plastic bags for liquids to a queue of compliant elderly people and she was ordering everyone to take off their coats and jackets. After a while, people self-police themselves and once they see others doing it, they comply or tell their companions to do so. She was so annoying as it was not her job but one she'd simply taken on herslef to assume an extra authority so I didn't take mine off. As I passed her, telling me directly to take off my jacket and still many yards from the screening point, I told her "I'll take my jacket off if and when the actual security people ask me to and not for the woman who hands out the plastic bags, thanks." Everyone looked at me with disgust but you're treated like cattle now from the moment you submit to these ludicrous rules and regulations by entering the airport until the moment of your release from them. And I don't know how many of your human rights they are breaching with their draconian clampdown done under the guise of security. I think it's some kind of experiment to see how far they can push people until we rebel. I'll resist it as far and as much as I can, me.

 

[ComedyPilot]

*rant mode on*

"Please help to reduce the number of security alerts by keeping your luggage with you at all times" they broadcast this at Manchester every ten minutes, trying to con the public into thinking that security alreats happen several times a week. FFS when was the last security alert at Manchester? Who do thse muppets think we are? Then there's the actual security check - designed for nothing other than to make passengers to feel better because as we have all read in the press, reporters have succeeded time and again in smuggling dodgy items through and in any case if you were seriously intent on blowing up a plane, would you try to carry the bomb in your case? No, you'd get a job at the airport, work there a few months until you knew how the place worked then get it in through the back door or hidden in a consignment of goods for the rip-off shops inside. Remember that case a few years ago where the young guys got into a BA plane at Heathrow? They were able to film themselves larking around in the cabin and publish the film. I bet it wouldn't be much harder to do even now; all you've got to do is wear a flourescent jacket and everybody will assume you're an official.

Grrrrrr!

*rant off*

This makes me boil, they get the items through, take pictures of it and boast about it in a full spread sunday paper article, but don't get arrested...!

Why?

They have broken the law, they should be prosecuted.

 

[threebikesmcginty]

Talking of reporters getting stuff through.

At Edinburgh airport last year as I approached the security section there was a chap marching back and forth ranting and raving about them not letting him take his bag through as it was too large. Red faced and seething he was shouting about how he'd been allowed to take it on the plane on the way up. As I got closer I thought I know that jug eared gent and it was none other than Andrew Marr. I saw him skulking through to his departure gate later sans bag, hehe. Anyway he provided excellent entertainment to what would have otherwise been the usual tedious journey.

So there's one who couldn't even get his bag on let alone an AK47 or a few pounds of Semtex!!

 

[ComedyPilot]

Piggin' journos should be made to walk.

Pond life.

 

[xpc316e]

I have a piece of titanium in my shoulder and the last time I went through security at JFK in New York it took all of my not inconsiderable self-control to remain somewhere near calm as the idiots mistreated me. Had I given them a piece of my mind, I would be probably languishing in some upstate prison - that was the only reason I kept my cool. I was abused - there is no way that any other word conveys the way I was dealt with. Airport security is still a joke, and the muppets who are employed are usually power-crazed numpties who get their kicks from their petty officialdom.

 

[tdr1nka]

A year or so back I went with some visiting friends to the London Eye.

They had at that time 'airport style' security to ensure no one could sabotage the eye and were on a particular look out for anything sharp, knives, etc.

Bags were searched, some were frisked and everyone was checked with a hand held metal detector.

It was half way round that I realised that I had my 'Leatherman' multi-tool on my belt which had gone unnoticed by security.

At the end of the ride I asked a member of staff to point me towards their head of security. When he arrived I showed him my ticket(which shows the time of boarding the eye)and then told him how his team had failed to find that I was carrying the multi-tool, all the while I took it from my belt and opened the three inch blade in front of him.

At this point he made a grab for the knife saying he'd have to confiscate it!
There was quite a row and I had to keep pointing out to him that I had been on the eye already so he had no right to take my knife and shouldn't he be hot footing it to the security bods and checking they were actually doing their job!

 

[addictfreak]

I have no real problem with Airport Security or any other kind for that matter as long as its applied correctly.
It annoys me when I pass through the Metal detector while my hand luggage is
X-Rayed and the 17 year old girl at the checkpoint is busy talking to her mate rather than watching the screen!

 

[ufkacbln]

We were on one of the appalling new trains going to a conference in Manchetser where there is no baggage space at all. So we take the end seats and place bags in the vestibule... Allong comes Jonathan J Jobsworth - Rail Guard extrodinaire

Guard - These bags can't stay here

Me - There are no luggage racks, and I need to keep an eye on the bag as it has my computer in. We have left plenty of room forpeople to get in and out, the aisles are clear.

Guard - you will have to put your bags in the end carriage (3 carriages away)

Me - I am not leaving my bags and things three carriages away - they will get nicked

Guard - You have to move them down there, there is no space here

Me - How does this conform with your instructions not t leave luggage unattended?

Guard - it doesn't matter about that - you can't keep your bags here!

So much for security and unattended luggage.

 

[bonj2]

It's patently obvious that the "no liquids" rule is simply a con to make you buy drinks from the air-side duty free lounge.
I can remember a few years back the last time I suffered the ordeal of flying from manchester it was a very stressful experience. Parking is a nightmare - once you're off the 56 at the right exit you think you're there, but oh no - you've got to then find the right car park, the find the right bus to the right terminal, then take a lift, and christ all those travelators! Then you have to run the gauntlet of all these officious, militant little hitlers of which you speak. Nightmare.
The last few holidays I've been on have been from doncaster, which is much better. Just park in front of the building, go in, and they only seem to have the minimum security necessary and no excessive queues.
You've got to remember manchester is a major, very large, busy airport. Try a smaller one, maybe liverpool.

 

[ArDee]

2 stories both true from travelling in America

First

I was travelling through Washington with a colleague he has a metal hip. We’ve travelled together before, so I go through first as I know he gets stopped and I pick his stuff up for him. Anyway we go through and as usual he gets stopped.

He tells TSA guy he has a metal hip and shows his passport which has a letter attached saying that he has a metal hip; but the guy says it must be his shoes, take them off and puts them through the X-ray which he does. But still set metal detector off.

Tells the TSA guy again he has a metal hip and shows his passport which has a letter attached saying that he has a metal hip; but the guy says it must be his belt, take it off and puts it through the X-ray which he does. But still set metal detector off.

Again tells TSA guy he has a metal hip and shows his passport which has a letter attached saying that he has a metal hip; the TSA guts asks if he can remove it and put it through the X-ray!!!

So my colleague says “have you got an operating table, local anaesthetic and a knife and he’ll give it a go”

The TSA guy says that “there is no need to take that attitude”

To which my colleague said “he was the one that started being bloody stupid”, at point I thought they were going to arrest him.

Second

Another colleague is a smoker and we were waiting air-side in a small airport in the south. He saw two guys open an emergency exit and go out for a cigarette, so he went with them.

The emergency exit led to a patio area for the ground side snack bar. When he came back he mentioned it to a security guard who said “Don’t consider it a problem, SIR”. He said he thought it was; but the security guard didn’t seem to take him seriously.

Anyway we loaded and the aeroplane taxied out to the runway, started to accelerate down the run way and then braked and taxied back to the building. The pilot came on and said that due to a “Security Incident” we had been asked to go back to the terminal.

They got us off the aeroplane, searched the plane, searched us and took my colleague away for a speaking too. He was allowed back on the plane about 20 minutes later, after they’d given him a lecture of the importance of airport security.

Anyway due to the delay we missed our connecting flight back to the UK; but, it’s not all bad we had to spend the week-end in New York on the company.

 

[02GF74]

if you were seriously intent on blowing up a plane, would you try to carry the bomb in your case? No, you'd get a job at the airport, work there a few months until you knew how the place worked then get it in through the back door or hidden in a consignment of goods for the rip-off shops inside.

no, it is easier than that, just leave your moibile phone switched on.

WTF is that all about - surely amongst the millions of travellers flying, there will be some who have left the mobile phones switched on but do we see planes falling out of the sky? no.


likewise the same at petrol stations, I see no infernos either.

so what is it in aid of?

 

[ComedyPilot]

I fully believe you should take a IQ test/exam to allow you to fly.

Some of the inebriated prats I've had the misfortune of being with in the same thin aluminium tube. 6 miles up, travelling at 500+ mph, don't desrerve to be let out of their piggin' village, let alone fed alcohol (by the airline in the AIR!).

 

[Chuffy]

I fully believe you should take a IQ test/exam to allow you to fly.

Some of the inebriated prats I've had the misfortune of being with in the same thin aluminium tube. 6 miles up, travelling at 500+ mph, don't desrerve to be let out of their piggin' village, let alone fed alcohol (by the airline in the AIR!).

All of whom think that they know more about airport security than any minimum wage spod and whose personal needs are far more important than any other consideration.

 

[surfgurl]

A few years ago we flew out of Manchester airport. We were two hours from landing in Cuba when my husband suddenly got up from his seat panicking and reached for his back in the luggage compartment. He put it down on the seat and leafed through it revealing he indeed had brought his multitool through security in his hand luggage. For some reason he thought he might need it on honeymoon. The mind boggles. His bag was re-xrayed at security in Cuba and no-one picked it up there either. For the journey home I made sure it went in the suitcase.

And then there was the time he was invited up to London by the local MP to visit the Houses of Parliament on Budget Day. He had stayed in town overnight in town so had an overnight bag with the usual contents, dirty clothes, half drunk bottle of vodka, cigarettes and lighter. He was sat in either the public gallery or the press gallery which at that time had no screen up, this was prior to Fathers for Justice and the purple powder in the condom thrown at Blair. Again he had the sudden dawning of realisation and worked out he had the contents of a molotov cocktail in his bag.