Airport Security

I am all for security, but how far does it have to go? I put my backpack in the tray to be x-rayed. (Brussels’s Airport) The security guard did not like the way I put it in. He picked it up and slammed it down in the try the way he wanted it. All my camera equipment was in it. I almost yelled at the guard to watch it. But I remained calm. You must be courteous and cooperate. 4 weeks before that one of my friends was traveling to Italy with his tripod and camera. He has been a pro photographer for over 35 years. They told him that his tripod could be a weapon. They gave him a hard time because, get this they did not know you use it for a camera.
Back to my travel there was an elderly couple in front of me must have been in there late 80’s. Same guard telling the old man to take off his belt and shoes and turns to his wife and said it in a loud voice take off you shoes to her. Now I do not know of and 80 year old couple that has hijacked a plane or blew one up. I would think security guards need to user some discretion in there work. He would not know that this couple could have been holocaust survivors, telling them to take belts and shoes off.
Do not get me wrong I am all for security but lets not over do it.

In America you no longer able to lock your luggage. All luggage that is checked in can not longer be locked so security and open and inspect you personal things. Now anyone from security can look through all your things. What happened to the use of x-ray? Do they really need to open each and every luggage? Then to put a nice slip back in your luggage telling you they have inspected your personal things.

A co worker left for the U.S.A. and is an American. He took a couple of baby toys for his young one to play with on the flight from Brussels to Ohio. No problem taking the toys to American. But on the return flight they did not let him take them back. He had to give them to his sister to mail them back to him.

Last year on my return flight from Italy the security guard opened my camera case and saw that it was a camera. Then turned to me and asked me if I was a photographer!! I just looked at him and said I think I am.

Do not get me wrong I am all for security but lets not over do it.

Sorry but it is a well known fact that tripods are not allowed as hand luggage. I always check mine, in my suitcase.

You can buy special locks for the USA which are TSA approved. We use those. This trip our luggage was opened (probably due to the tripod :wink and they left a note inside to say they had done so. They X ray all the bags and inspect some of them on a spot basis or if something suspicious shows up on the x-ray. my case also had some battery chargers in it so I can understand them taking a look.

If you have a good camera bag/backpack it will take quite a bit of abuse from security at airports.

I'd rather put up with the hassles of modern day airline travel that been blown up half way across the Atlantic thank you.

Believe or not things have got better. Just after 9/11 I flew to the US and was subjected to an extra spot check at Heathrow and at Charlotte. Why I wondered? I then observed that they were double checking everyone with a beard...

I was subjected to a "spot check" at Heathrow once and had a nice long chat with the man searching my camera bag about the relative merits of Pentax v. other makes.

The silliest thing I saw was a family who had their sunhats in a carrier bag. The security guard apologetically told them that they were only allowed one piece of hand-baggage but if they wore their hats that would be fine. Quite funny to see a family of five in the queue at Gatwick all wearing large sombrero type hats!

I agree with Gwyn though, I'd rather the checks than be blown up en route.

Cheers, Kris.

When I flew out of Boston a couple of years ago the poor woman in front of me set of the alarms as she went through the metal detector. They ran the hand detector over her - the wire in her bra had set of the alarm and she was carted off to have it checked. How mortifying!

I'm all for the security checks, quite happy to queue and wait.

Miss the point here.

One time it is ok to take a tripod on board and the next time it is not??
Buy a bullet proof camera case so some meat head security guard and do what he wants with you expenses cameras and will not break it?
What about being more down to earth and treat the persons and their personal items with respect??
Why must we be look at as a terrorist first and just a traveler after we get through the security check?

I am more concern about how good is the pilot and is the Jet maintained correctly. Take a look at this website link. As you can see a lot of pilot error and was the Jet maintained correctly, and bad weather……..

It has not been OK to take a tripod on board a plane since 9-11. Quite apart from using the thing as a cosh you could have stuffed the legs with explosives. All checked bags go through explosive detectors so they are allowed as checked bags.

If you treat the security guys with respect they do the same to you. It is a crappy job with a lot of hassle from the passengers, and it is no wonder they occasionally get bolshy back. They have mostly had a humour by-pass it's true, but you can probably only here a joke so many times.

You may have been over sensitive to his handling of your bag simply because it had your camera stuff in it. If it had had your paperback for the flight in it you wouldn't have been so bothered. It probably wasn't obvious to him that it had a camera in it.

I have experienced security at Schiphol, (very civilised - at the gate before boarding), Heathrow (complete chaos), in Tanzania, and at several US airports. Never had a problem anywhere. Take the laptop out if I need to, take my shoes off if I need to, accept it and get through asap. Even US Immigration people seemed to have been to charm school nowadays after the complaints about them in the past.

Storms can happen, maintenance gets missed, pilots are human, planes crash. Fact of life. I'd just rather not go into the great dark night to allow some religious nutcase to get his quota of virgins. If queuing, security questions, filling endless forms for pre-checking, and a bit of hassle are what it involves I'll accept it. No-one makes you fly after all.

Rbubbly

Why do you need to take a tripod into the cabin? That is what the hold is for.

I really am in favour of airlines clamping down on non-essential items in the cabin. How many small suitcase do you see being carried on? and how many are actually opened during the flight?

I will only take items that I plan to use - laptop, power supply, headphones, reading material, amenity kit and clean shirt - plus when I go fishing my lifejacket as it cannot be checked as hold baggage.

As for locking cases from the US - not true. My luggage is always locked after the checked in security check. And as someone with over 100 trips from the US and probably 50 of those since 11 September '01 _ I think I have sufficient experience to comment.

Someone also mentioned pensioners - they need to be checked as much as any one else. They could easily be the carrier of the explosives/knife to be used in a hijack.

Don't think any of the things you have been asked to do are excessive or not described in the rules imposed by the airline or the air port. Of course, you can't take a tripod on board and everything else must be in the one piece of hand luggage and that must be within a certain size. Just read the rules and comply, no problem and at least you know your life is being taken care of.

P.S. Would have thought the excessively elderly were as likely as anyone else to be a suicide bomber, may be even more so.

hmmm how many times did it go wrong?
it's probable a number of 1 in the millionth time if ti isn't more... ridiculous though.

If you know what not to do with an aircraft you can easily let it crash with some duck-tape so who are we kidding here?
I'm referring to the crash that was caused because someone taped off the static ports because they were cleaning the aircraft but forgot to take them off.

Most Dutch probable know the television program Undercover.
It's about a guy that goes Undercover and try to expose some horible things here in the Netherlands, Drugs, dealing with illegal weapons, animal sex... just to give you some examples.
He had one episode were he tried to get on Schiphol were the aircrafts are parked and docked(Amsterdam airport).
He went in with a fake ID and his rugsack didn't even got checked, he walked right in and even got inside the aircraft themself.
If he can do that then why not someone else?

I know security is needed but they most of the time are looking at the wrong place. With other public transports we don't have those safety checks so why do we have them with aircrafts?
Ramming a cruiship against the statue of liberty would also be world news!

Cruise ships also have pretty strict security Stefan, as does the Eurostar from London for instance. Since a cruise ship reacts much slower than an aircraft it would be very difficult to actually cause casualties in the manner you refer to.

None of the extra security has put people off travelling by air. Only the current credit crunch is apparently doing that - though both my flights to and from Portland were packed to the gills, in business and down the back where I was.

He would not stand a chance at Heathrow - having been the Airside Security Manager for my last company, I know the UK processes very well. Getting a person airside is almost impossible - there are ways but I'll not say how. Getting a weapon through is a little easier - although still difficult.

You cannot cover every possibility and method but you can make it difficult.

I used to travel very regularly for work when I was an IT trainer from Manchester to Schiphol- every luggage experience was fine. Gwyn is right - you just have to treat them with respect.

Never had anything checked when boarding the ship... well my ticket and ID, better then in the train though... maybe times have changed in 6 years dont know how much. Also only got my ticket checked on the Thalys.

But yes cruise ship are smaller but I remember the impact it had when a train got hijacked here in the Netherlands quite some years ago.

But back to aircrafts.
How many flights a year and how many have a problem with terrorists?
Arent we overreacting?

Andrew, when you're working with aircrafts you know there are far more simpler ways to let one crash believe me

The security checked his ID but they didn't do there job so well so simply let him pass...

There is probable only one check to get on airside or not?
It is so with schiphol

Stefan -

I still retain flight deck access with several airlines and can travel on the flight deck with flight crew permission.

Heathrow (and most other UK airports) have very strict and detailed security checks. There are some factors which anyone going airside does not know about and a fake ID is very unlikely to work.