The problem could be eliminated by having EASA wide plastic card pilot license ls with a photo, similar to the EU drivers license.
I think the basic issue is that anybody can knock up an ID card. So it means absolutely nothing.
What is one trying to protect from?
An unauthorised PA28 pilot walking around is zero risk even though he makes security staff blood boil (I did that at Exeter recently, following the wrong footpath, and you can easily do it at the hotbed of terrorism called Alderney 
).
A bomber is a big risk, but he will photoshop any ID necessary, hence any ID which you just “look at” is worthless, regardless of what it achieves in the security blood boiling department.
For it to work for some (perceived) security benefit, there needs to be a “system” behind it, involving a verification of the individual, and the ID card needs to be “impossible” to counterfeit. Such a system is possible but it is a lot of work, lot of money… It exists for many workers in many places, e.g. big airport employees, maintenance staff, etc.
At a minimum, the system must involve turning up somewhere, with your passport (proof of ID), a utility bill / bank statement (proof of address), etc. Then a trusted person has to certify you as ok and create the ID card. Such a system is difficult (but not impossible, with 9/11 level of planning and patience) to circumvent. Actually there have been many cases of airport workers who turned out to be dodgy, because the system had weak points. The existence of organised luggage thieving gangs at airports is just one manifestation which is as old as airports themselves…
Nowadays the ID card would contain a smartcard chip. But that is the easy part. You then need to install entry barriers which open only when the valid ID is presented. These can be purely human-implemented but then the human needs a card reader which is online-linked to a database of verified individuals. But… a human will be a fixed cost of some 30k-50k per shift.
It is just like a passport except that a passport has anti-counterfeiting features enabling it to be verified to a fair degree of accuracy without the online database link.
These systems have been set up for staff at big airports, where the staff could literally plant bombs on planes. For GA, this is ridiculous and unnecessary.
The problem is GA access at an airport which also has airline traffic. These need a method of segregating the GA individuals so if one attempted to go towards an airliner, security staff would see him. At some (small) airports this is difficult, and pragmatism is required (and this is widely implemented, and often without issues for GA, usually by having security staff watching the area around the airliner, and disappearing as soon as it taxies out). At the big ones you just set up a GA terminal. Then, you don’t need the huge system behind it all, for vetting the people and issuing the identity cards.
The problem is that many people just want a job where they can sit all day and feel important, and they drift into “security” positions. It’s not just the UK; it’s everywhere where there is stupid airport management (which is more or less everywhere).
Peter wrote:
Also the name on it was the name you used in their forum
Would the name on the card have been __Mickey Mouse_ , I would have been cleared to go airside, as long as my photo (not Mickey Mouse’s one) and the word CREW were on it as well.
I have an Inverness Airport pass, with photo, checked by security and swiped each time I go airside. It does not allow me to go to the “Critical Area”.
I had to show identify, and get a sponsor to sign my initial application.
CAA regulations limit any person to one pass.
A former syndicate member, as senior airport management, had an “Access All Areas” pass.
He said some staff had a pass which restricted them from approaching aircraft.
If one was also a GA pilot, the legal situation would be interesting.
To get my Lelystad pass I needed a certificate from the Justice Ministry saying they had no objection – it allows access to designated areas only. Access via electronic locks.
Fuji_Abound wrote:
In Oz pretty much every pilot is issued with a pilot crew card by the licensing authority. They are required and universal at the larger airports
Is handling mandatory in any of these airports?
In Værnes, we have an access badge with picture. To get it, you need to fill a form and take a course about security at airport. The funny part is that this course is required for anyone getting access badges of any types at the airport. That means that when I took mine, just before a summer, most attendees were 20 something girls. I was surprised until I realized that they were all getting summer jobs at the shops and restaurant of the airport :-)
The badge we get as GA pilot allows us only around the flying club area, through a dedicated gate with badge reader.
If you don’t have a badge, you can go to the main security gate, show your pilot license an a photo ID and they will call a patrol car to drive you to the flying club, feels a bit like VIP service :-).
In Luxembourg, GA organisation members (even non-pilot members) get an access card that gives access only to a delimited GA zone. The police has to approve it, and you after their approval you must follow a course about security at the airport. The same course for everyone, from baggage handlers (access to “red” most security sensitive zone) to us (access only to lowest-security zone). After taking a second course specifically about the GA area, we are allowed to escort other people in, logging the people we escort in and out in a ledger open to inspection by the police.
Access through a dedicated gate unlocked by the card plus PIN code, using the kind of full-height turnstile that enforces single-person passage and makes taking even a suitcase rather hard (but still possible), that kind: 
If you don’t have a card (or it got locked because the reader locked up / rebooted three times in a row in cold weather while you tried to enter your PIN code, counting three incorrect PIN entries), you need a badge holder to escort you, no airport employee / airport security / airport police will do it. If the gate malfunctions, but your access badge is otherwise valid, they do come and check your badge through radio link with the airport database. Except they removed the display of the right phone number to call to do that, so you have to have written it down before that :)
The rules for the GA area are actually quite sensible. E.g. we are allowed to bring in tools with us; the rule is “if it is legal to carry that tool on the public street, then you can take it into the low-security GA area”. For weapons (e.g. hunting rifles one is licensed to possess and one would like to take along in travel), you do have to ask for a police escort. The course says they will escort you from the gate to the aircraft, and as soon as it is in the aircraft, it is on your head as PIC what happens with the weapon.
Prague-Letňany (LKLT) came up with the idea, that everyone without a valid airfield ID-card (e.g. visiting pilots), has to be escorted by an airfield employee against a fee. At the moment of writing, the “escort service” costs 16€ per 30 minutes. This means that this uncontrolled (!) airfield costs now at least 32€ for each visit to Prague extra, which makes it one of the most expensive airfields of Central and Eastern Europe, except for international airports with mandatory handling. When I visited Letňany last year, the fee wasn’t introduced and we could walk on our own over the entire airfield. I hope that these delusional safety measures will not be introduced on other airfields. It seems to be that the Czech Republic has some very restrictive rules…
Has anybody yet been stung by an airfield that refuses to let them enter to fly their plane out, yet charges large fees for leaving it there?
