Are All Security Screenings necessary?

[pagingjoan]

The amenity kits are IMHO fairly immune to the screening. I am often asked to gift a kit to family/friends and have transited LHR/SIN/HKG/BKK/LAX/SFO/JFK with an intact amenity kit.
I've never bothered to decant and repack them, reckoning that I'm not bothered if they are confiscated.

I agree that the airline amenities kits usually skate through without a problem. But there were security staff at T5 recently bellowing at the lines of passengers, ordering that all airline amenities kits be taken out and LAGs removed. Most of it was being confiscated in the time I could observe. (Being T5, that was quite a while!) Hope all those products went to a good home and not into landfill.

 

[dajop]

My biggest problem with the nude o Scopes are that almost every thing had to come off or out.

This includes every thing in your pockets including items that normally don't set off the WTMDs. Posted on a wing and a prayer ...

Yep I've been told to take a handkerchief out of my pocket.

 

[Simo]

I don't have a problem with security screening and if I have an extra screening so be it.

Maybe there is potential threat and they are just being cautious.

I do have a minor issue with the random screening for bomb detection.

I was told it was totally random but I walked through just behind 20 or 30 airline staff and there was 2 of them doing the checks and they only pulled me out of the line. Yep random my behind.

 

[juddles]

.random my behind.

But Simo, did that really interfere with your day?

A frequent complaint about security screening is that the staff who perform same are rude. Valid in an ideal world, but lets be realistic. The world is chockers of wannabe-experts who ¨know better¨ than the professionals and as such give the security staff a hard time. These travellers dont stop to think that (a) the staff they deal with are just doing the job they are instructed to do, and (b) the procedures are put in place by people who put a damn side more effort into developing them than armchair experts. The end result of this is a body of reasonably poorly educated people (face it, security at an airport is a necessary, not a sexy job) who are constantly abused by travellers just for doing the job they get paid for. Hard to maintain an indefinite smile in those circumstances.

I have been through a zillion security checks in a zillion airports, yet due to having a simply accepting attitude it is such a non-event experience.

 

[Simo]

No it did not interfere with my day just annoyed me at the so called random picking of people going through the security check point.

like do you call it random breath testing when the police block off an entire road and you have to participate in a breath test to complete your journey.

 

[juddles]

....
like do you call it random breath testing when the police block off an entire road and you have to participate in a breath test to complete your journey.

I love when they do that. I dont drink-drive, the inconvenience is minimal, and it makes life much harder for the wankers that endanger me and my family by drink driving.

Another way to put it, is that my philosophy is that whatever I can do to make it easier for the police to catch the coughholes amonst us, I am happy with. IMHO I feel the benefit of these checks outweighs the truly trivial effect they have on my life.

 

[Simo]

I fully agree with you Juddles.

I just don't like the phrase "Random" when it is not.

And at the end of the day it has no effect on my day as I don't stress those sort of things.

 

[harvyk]

I don't have a problem with security screening and if I have an extra screening so be it.

Maybe there is potential threat and they are just being cautious.

I do have a minor issue with the random screening for bomb detection.

I was told it was totally random but I walked through just behind 20 or 30 airline staff and there was 2 of them doing the checks and they only pulled me out of the line. Yep random my behind.

The 20 or 30 airline staff have prob learnt do not make eye contact ever. IME as soon as you make eye contact you get drawn in by their power... It's almost like a modern day equiv to a medievil fairytail, where the hero is warned aganst looking a troll in the eyes.

 

[Simo]

The 20 or 30 airline staff have prob learnt do not make eye contact ever. IME as soon as you make eye contact you get drawn in by their power... It's almost like a modern day equiv to a medievil fairytail, where the hero is warned aganst looking a troll in the eyes.

Yep I tried that tactic but still they got me.

 

[Sprucegoose]

The amenity kits are IMHO fairly immune to the screening. I am often asked to gift a kit to family/friends and have transited LHR/SIN/HKG/BKK/LAX/SFO/JFK with an intact amenity kit.
I've never bothered to decant and repack them, reckoning that I'm not bothered if they are confiscated.

I take them out and throw them in the containers. If it's busy they don't know it's yours anyway.

I gift them as well. People think I'm generous

 

[irv]

Leaving Canada via Vancouver went through USA customs, usual full body scan. Forgot I had a neck chain on given to me by my wife with a zodiac symbol about the size of a ten cent piece.

While standing there waiting for clearance heard the following over the communications system "person has an aberration".

When approached I was asked do you have something around your neck, I appologised and said sorry had forgot about it as it is just something I wear. Was not allowed to touch it, had to have a pat down then asked to carefully show it. I appeciate the rules and reason behind this but in reality a bit of common sense throughout the world should apply ie "what's that, a neck chain, show me, thats OK"

 

[monoccular]

I flew to Tasmania in May. On disembarking, we were informed that all fruit had to be dumped in the bin. I had a mandarin that I hadn't got round to eating in the plane, so I started to eat it before proceeding further, only to be told that I couldn't eat it because the smell of the mandarin might upset the sniffer dog. On asking where the dog was, I was told that the dog wasn't there on that day. Go figure!

But I don't think Tasmanians are real smart

 

[ftm]

But I don't think Tasmanians are real smart

Careful... some might take offence to that.

Sent from my GT-P7510 using AustFreqFly

 

[monoccular]

Careful... some might take offence to that.

Sent from my GT-P7510 using AustFreqFly

Maybe....but most of them won't be able to read it

 

[monoccular]

Would you prefer that our lapses in security be the cause of the next aviation related terrorist attack?

I think the point being made was that the original security check was regarded as good enough to get into Australia, but not good enough to get from ADL to MEL.

Where is the logic in that??

 

[bigjobs]

lol at bag screening / passenger screening security checks preventing terrorism. that's a long bow. so many holes in so many other parts of a complex process.

 

[ftm]

Maybe....but most of them won't be able to read it

That comment is unnecessary and doesnt contribute in the slightest to the topic.

sent from a mobile device...