Ever increasing security at some airports

Presumably too expensive to implement for other airlines

It would never pass the political correctness test in “mainland” Europe Let’s face it, some 90% of the usual suspects are pretty obvious… So profiling enables resources to be concentrated where it might do something useful.

I got the treatment Ultranomad describes at Houston, Texas, because I had a M1 visa in my passport from a US school, CRM at Phoenix, who messed up the I-20 so I never went there. They then refused to co-operate on getting the dead-end stuff removed. The US immigration guy, ex-MacD seemingly, decided I learnt to fly and not to land When I finally found somebody with a brain, I told them they can go to faa.gov and check I did my training elsewhere in the USA; the reply was they don’t have internet access. This was 2008. I have a new passport now but who knows what’s on their computer? I need to budget for about 3 hours on my next trip there.

Security self-selects on a particular character profile – somebody who likes to throw people around, ridicule them, but doesn’t have much brainpower to do a job which needs a brain. It must be a real problem for the people who are trying to make it work. I guess the smarter people cost too much.

Flyer59 wrote:

It was mean anyway, those guys just follow orders.

Haven’t history taught us that is not an excuse?

The main reason Israeli airports haven’t been overrun by terrorists is that terrorist organisations don’t have good analysts to spot the weaknesses in their security arrangements.

I enjoyed my El-Al inquisition and my overall impression was that my inquisitor was both bright and good at his job. Eventually he said something preposterous at which point I got an attack of the giggles, the interview ended and they let me through. Someone else I knew completely lost it and started swearing at them… and they immediately let him into the country. My theory at the time was that they wanted to push you until they got some kind of genuine emotional response on which to base their assessment of you.

Once in Israel, it used to be that security appeared in many ways laxer than I was used to in the UK. And yet most plots seem to get nipped in the bud – at least that was my impression. I think the Israelis know what they’re doing.

Airborne_Again wrote:

Haven’t history taught us that is not an excuse?

Doesn’t history repeat itself?

Are we talking about real life or about philosophy?
Fact is: The guy at the security check does (and has to) follow his orders, or he will lose his job. And my bet is that almost everyone here has no problem following rules when it’s about his job.

If we don’t like these rules we can (try to) fight them on many different levels, but the underpaid guy at the xray machine is the wrong target …
I at least have stopped argueing with them, except the very few cases in which they don’t behave well. And of course i protest clearly when they want to take away my bottle of mineral water.

Also: I am sure that airport management around the globe would be thankful for ideas on how to improve this situation. I can say that i fly commercial with my family several times per year – and if the system as it us adds any safety to our flights, i am for it.

But i hate it just like everyone else … especially the shoes and belt off procedure (not common on German airports).

Security self-selects on a particular character profile – somebody who likes to throw people around, ridicule them, but doesn’t have much brainpower to do a job which needs a

Partly, yes. But I guess the overwhelming majority of aiport security workers around the globe don’t “choose” this profession, they just need to pay their bills and have no other marketable skills or there are simply no better jobs available.

99 percent of all security people i have ever met behave absolutely polite and professional – and most people have no idea what those guys have to endure day by day. Most of the time when you are polite to them – they are too.

As i said, a good friend of mine was one of the heads of Munich Airport Security. Most people have zero idea what security finds in hand luggage there: Several handguns per month, for example. Most from people who have a carry permit, but not all.

And that’s Munich … Europe’s (probably) safest city of that size.

The guy at the security check does (and has to) follow his orders, or he will lose his job. And my bet is that almost everyone here has no problem following rules when it’s about his job.

Yes, but he/she applied for the job in the first place because the job description attracted them. THAT is why we encounter mostly the same sort of person doing this job. It isn’t because management forces them to do it. That comes only later, when the pay starts arriving in the bank and they buy a new car on finance with it (etc).

But I guess the overwhelming majority of aiport security workers around the globe don’t “choose” this profession, they just need to pay their bills and have no other marketable skills or there are simply no better jobs available.

I’d say it is all the same thing Personally, if I needed to earn money but had no skills, I would never apply for an airport security job because I would totally hate screwing people around, and putting up with people who will mostly hate me too.

Professions and hobbies mostly self-select. It’s just like the old jokes about pilots… How do you find a pilot at a party of 100 people? You don’t have to – he will find you!

The underlying issue for GA isn’t airport security workers though – mostly we don’t interact with them much. It is apparently stupid management, which fails to use obvious options to segregate GA pathways from airline passenger pathways, and then imposes silly security on stuff you carry.

Stephan_Schwab wrote:

So I will use Mengen EDTM and take my business there

The unfortunat truth is that they probably do not care about your business because it is a drop in the ocean and more a nuisance than anything else. Picking you up at the plane and drive you to the terminal, screen you etc probably means that we wikl soon see mandatory handling to the tune of 150€