I enjoy travelling and experiencing different countries. I don’t mind flying either, but I hate the other stuff that goes with it like booking, packing, airport security, queueing and all the rest of it but it must be done and it’s usually worth it in the end.
Airport security is one of the main hurdles. It can be challenging at times and I often wonder how effective it really is. Inspections vary from airport to airport and I get the impression that it’s all a bit hit and miss.
For instance, I’m often asked to remove my shoes by security staff, while some airports have no interest in my footwear. You’d imagine that if I could hide something in my shoe in one airport, then surely, I could do it in another. And what exactly could I hide there anyway? I have asked this question a few times, but it only seems to irritate security staff and one time in Heathrow, things got a bit heated and I thought I was going to be arrested.
It’s the same thing with my belt. Some want it off, while others don’t seem bothered. A few times, I started to take it off without being instructed, only to be told to leave it alone. I wear a belt for a reason and taking it off can create problems.
I took my lap top out of its case once, opened it and placed it in a tray as I was told. When it came out the other side of the x-ray machine, it was lying on the rollers after being tipped out of the tray. It is an expensive piece of equipment and I was annoyed. I complained to the guys on duty, but I got no satisfaction, so I won’t be opening it again.
Recently, I was travelling home through Paphos Airport in Cyprus and I took my laptop out of my bag and placed it in a separate tray. I put my watch and wallet in the same tray, but a lady barked at me and insisted that the laptop had to be on its own.
She threw up another tray, but by then, I had retrieved the offending articles and put them in the tray that had my bag in it. Then she started giving out to one of her assistants for not spotting this offence who in turn pointed out that they were no longer in the laptop tray. They had a bit of a barney and I left them at it.
I walked through the security screen but there was no sign of my bag appearing. I waited patiently until this guy appeared with it. He asked me if I had a charger in it and he made me take it out. This was a first for me and I asked him if this was a new departure, but he completely ignored me and proceeded to swab it for drugs.
Ok, so we don’t want terrorists making weapons out of chargers or hiding AK47’s in their shoes and I’m all for making life more difficult for drug smugglers too. Ultimately, it’s for our own good but I’m just not convinced that airport security is all it’s cracked up to be. Random selection isn’t completely effective, and I get the feeling that it’s just about the optics.
In the US over the past 10 years, the Government has been employing thousands of behavior-detection officers to identify possible terrorists at airport checkpoints. I’m not sure how good these people are but if European airports are using these people too, they need to review their strategy because if they are targeting the likes of me, they’re way off the mark.
A sixty-odd-year old retired police sergeant from Ireland, travelling to Cyprus, is hardly the typical profile of an ISIS recruit. I have no intention of sacrificing myself for any cause and the only threat I present is the risk of indecently exposing my privates when my pants ends up around my ankles. And that will be their own fault for taking my belt.
I don’t mind being scanned, swabbed and x-rayed if it ensures that we all have a safe flight and saves us from ending up in the middle of the ocean because of some demented creature trying to become a martyr. But does it work?
A simple drone brought London Gatwick Airport to a complete stand still last Christmas, causing huge inconvenience for over 100,000 passengers. These things present a very real, modern threat to aviation but all the resources available to the UK couldn’t find it.
But terrorists aren’t our only concern because there are other hazards lurking inside planes too.
Kate Leahy is a journalist, but she previously worked as a flight attendant with British Airways. She wrote a piece recently about her experience of hygiene at 30,000 feet and she said it doesn’t matter whether you’re travelling in business class or economy, cleanliness isn’t guaranteed.
She said a study by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation found that headrests were riddled with staphylococcus and E coli. The seat-back pockets, which hold the safety briefing cards and in-flight magazines, are a great place to pick up coliform bacteria which is found in human faeces.
She saw passengers vomiting over tray tables, chewing their fingernails and throwing bits on the floor, wiping bogies on the arm rest and flicking them across the aisle and there wasn’t always time to do a deep clean. She also reminded us that while we take off our shoes on a flight, passengers making their way to and from the toilet can soak up a lot of mess on their socks and drag it back to their seat.
After reading that, I think airport security is the least of my problems.