Airport security workers - is anyone actually trying to bring anything dangerous through airports these days??

[CassandraBarrett]

Perhaps I have the job title wrong - I mean the people that check your hand luggage to make sure there's no contraband.

I can understand scanning for knives/guns. Though from reading Jack Reacher I think ceramic weapons are a thing and won't set off the beeper?

But to have so many people wait for so long while customs checks the half centimetre of warm water that lies forgotten in a bottle. Or re-scans the lip balm in a hand bag (not a liquid, a solid!) Or the last little inch of nappy cream in a banjaxed tube.

What's the point?? Are these things genuinely potentially dangerous (or could dangerous things be disguised thus)?

How many attempts have airport security fended off in the last 20+ years?

I would love to know if it's a massive waste of time or if there have been more terrorist attempts that the general public are blissfully unaware of....

I've just done a month of pretty regular flights. Australia was brilliant. No limits on liquids at all on any internal flights. No need to take out electronics, they just scanned the whole bag. The tech is defo there, it just needs adopting everywhere.

The worst experience was flying back via Singapore. Got off at one gate, walked to another and had to go through security again and they were very thorough in checking bags, actually hand searching them as well.

@FlounderingFruitcake

You don't need global entry, it's down to the equipment at the airport. Jfk had the new machines installed the week before I travelled

When we were children my brother, for some reason, decided to take a screwdriver in his backpack and that got confiscated at the airport, mum was pissed off because it was her favourite one!

We've got the new machines at Helsinki airport and it definitely makes going through security so much easier, not having to dig things out of your bags. The forgotten bottle of hand sanitiser in a side pocket got through without remark but another bag had to be opened up. I think it was just a random quota check because they opened it, asked if I packed it myself, then shut it again, didn't even rummage through it.

@WYDMAD

Most people looking to cause a lot of damage do it on land because airport security is so tight. Remove that strict security and that might change.

That's certainly is (or used to be) one of the reasons some of those involved in security used to give for screening continuing at it's current level.....

Amazing!
Global entry/pre check has had it for years though, at all US airports. Unsure if that’s the new machines though or if you’re just trusted because you’ve been background checked and interviewed. There’s no body scanner or taking shoes off either with the pre check line.

I taught my kids from the earliest stage that airports are full of rules and you dont question them and do as your told. Also that the USA Border control don't want to hear your chat or jokes!

Why would you take a water pistol in your hand luggage???

I used to go to America every year and it really threw me off how stern most American airport workers were.

If you have a Google, you’ll see all the aircraft related incidents and how they changed aviation. Not all are terrorism related, some are caused by combinations of items during an incident that escalated it to a serious/fatal one. There’s also far, far more that goes into aviation safety than you’d think.

Prior to 9/11, hijackings were very, very common all airlines told pilots to just do whatever the hijackers wanted. 9/11 was the first time an aircraft was used to murder people on a grand scale.

It’s mind boggling that prior to 9/11, a sterile cockpit wasn’t a thing, doors to them were also flimsy as fuck so anyone could access them.

Kindle is because of the battery I would have thought.
I use insulin , so have needles and sharps and have no problems getting through.
However DH has expensive camera that he won't put in the hold, got stopped because his air puffer to clean his lens was roughly the shape of grenade. When he had it in hold his bag looked like it was searched as well. Security in Montenegro thought it was really funny and were throwing it around!

Thing is though, if there were two flights going to the same place, one with no security checks and one with, which one would you get on?

When DS was 3 the steward took him into see the pilot, he was cute and been asking lots of questions when queuing for loo. She came and got him to go with her. That must have been in 1999.
Another bigger kid noticed and asked to go in as well but they said no.

Christ, imagine allowing a toddler into a cockpit because he was cute and asking.

@bruffin

When DS was 3 the steward took him into see the pilot, he was cute and been asking lots of questions when queuing for loo. She came and got him to go with her. That must have been in 1999.
Another bigger kid noticed and asked to go in as well but they said no.

I was involved in a few of these ( pre- 911 I hasten to add)...

There probably wasn't anything sinister about the bigger kid getting a no, it might simply have been a case of there was time to squeeze one visit in, especially for maybe somebody who was keen e.g. your DS, but not the opportunity or TBH sometimes the inclination to fit in any others...

I used to regularly go to the cockpit (flew a lot as parent worked for the airline). A couple of times I sat in the cockpit for take off/landing - this was offered by the staff. My kids used to go as well, it was a regular thing to see a stream of children being walked along to see the cockpit & meet the captain. The cockpit door was often open.

I’ve been picked up for having a plastic tail comb in my handbag before now. Looked suspiciously like a weapon apparently.

I’d really like to know if a lipstick has ever been used to conceal anything.

You can follow all the rules diligently but if you get someone on security who spends minutes examining a standard lipstick you do wonder if it’s ever made a difference to security aside from creating delays.

I'd rather security take their time with a thorough search than be the (admittedly unlikely) victim of a chlorine gas terrorist attack on a plane. Just factor in the extra time when you plan your journey.

I feel the phrase “fuck around and find out” was made as a response to this.

Delays (minor inconvenience) vs safety (deaths of everyone on board) - no brainer, you’d think, but people constantly fucking whine.

a lipstick could be used to conceal a small knife/dagger.

something the size of a small electrical item could conceal liquids or drugs (hence the request sometimes to switch the laptop on).

ime carrying a dried salami or a brass mouthpiece is guaranteed to get you ti the table for a full search...

@DPN

One could probably do some damage with a bottle of alcohol and a lighter if they so wished.

I can't even get a Christmas Pudding to light!

We went through Boston airport a couple of days before 9/11, and had endless detailed security checks of ourselves DS’s pushchair, to the point where we nearly missed the connection. ‘

Apparently’ high security turned out in that case not to mean ‘genuinely’ good security, as it was an airport the hijackers passed through.

@edgeware You're going to get a rude awakening if you ever try to fly out of Luton airport in the UK. Bloody awful!

On my first trip to the US my sister and I had two 2l bottles of water each. That was at a time where many cases of DVT made the news in Germany, so I had asked a friend who's a doctor and she said to drink plenty during the flight.
That was after 9/11 but before the liquid restrictions.

The next time we flew to the US was just a few weeks after the foiled attack that brought in the liquid restrictions. No liquids were allowed at all, not even my sister's prescription nose spray.

I find it can be a bit hit and miss, at Heathrow I rarely get pulled over, when I fly from Stuttgart, my hand luggage often gets special treatment - chocolate can look like plastic explosives on the scanner, and I always have a lot of chocolate coming back.
In Stuttgart they also have a sign of forbidden items, among them a chain saw and a lawn mower. Someone must have tried, otherwise, why list them.

a lipstick could be used to conceal a small knife/dagger.
you can take scissors up to a certain size anyway (?6 inches) I think.