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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to chuck a mental in airport security?

38 replies

hobnob57 · 23/12/2008 21:59

Context: have recently had a mmc and mum had a heart scare. Was returning from visiting her, on my own with dd (2).

DD has ranitidine medicine. I decant some into a 25ml bottle and carry her prescription. Airport security would not let me through unless her 25ml bottle was in a one-litre plastic bag. They offered to sell me one for £3 because the one I hoked around for was too big.

FFS. Why is medicine any less of a security threat in a sandwich bag?

I'm afraid I made a fool of myself, was rude and then burst into tears. Really could have done without some stupid jobsworth when in an airport with a toddler at 7am and faced with plane, bus, train and automobile journey ahead.

Gosh, feel better now. I don't normally rant

OP posts:
StripeyKnickersSpottySocks · 23/12/2008 22:06

Its very annoying, I had to buy a bag the other week.

What was even worse was that the girl behind me bought her own A5 (correct size) bag for her toilitries, but was told she had to buy one as hers wasn't resealable! Its a flipping money making scam.

Original poster
hobnob57 · 23/12/2008 22:09

I've read the official guidelines on direct.gov.uk and it's SO obvious from there that these bags are designed to ensure that people don't take more than a litre's worth of liquid on the plane. It doesn't even have to be a resealable bag - just one that can close (to show it's less than a litre).

I would have thought a 25ml bottle was obviously less than a litre...........

I'm working up to a stinker of a letter to the airport.

OP posts:
Tryharder · 23/12/2008 22:11

YAB a little bit U but I totally sympathise.

I used to work in an airport and at one point, it used to take us about 30 minutes to actually get to work through the security, and we were being searched, not allowed to take food/drink through, made to take our shoes off etc even though we weren't going anywhere near the farking planes. I have kicked off before to the security so I feel your pain.

However, I know some people who work in airport security and they admit they are being total jobsworths about it but all the restrictions/rules/regulation are put in place by some Government body (cant remember which one) and if they(the security) are caught letting people through with the wrong size bottle/can of coke etc then they are instantly dismissed. And they do send through people posing as passengers to test them.

Where I worked, a security guard let an airport worker go airside without a flourescent jacket and he was sacked.

They are probably pissed off and embarrassed as well at the pettiness of it all but like all of us, have mortgages to pay and kids to support....

grumpalina · 23/12/2008 22:11

YANBU!. I had this with a tube of Elizabeth 8 hour cream and an eye shadow I had just bought in Boots (in the duty free bit sealed with the receipt).

Both items were confiscated but apparantly there would have been no probelm if I had a small plastic bag to carry them in separately!!!

I take it from that if my 8 hour cream and eyeshadow were skillfully disguised explosives their explosive abilities would be rendered useless by a plastic bag???

mumto2andnomore · 23/12/2008 22:11

Yes its annoying but they are only doing their job and doing their best to stop terrorism-worth being put out a little I would have thought.

grumpalina · 23/12/2008 22:13

I think I would have been quite pleased if they had offered to sell me a plastic bag! Last time they gave them out free so I didn't really think plus I had removed all liquids and put them in my hold luggage.

OhYouMerryMerryKitten · 23/12/2008 22:16

I remember watching in disbelief as US security had a huge debate between themselves as to whether dds antibiotics (prescribed in the US) could go just in the bottle or whether they it had to be bagged too. I had printed off the latest TSA advice from the internet and had a bag with me just in case. Yet still they debated. And all for a ride through the x-ray machine.

Tryharder · 23/12/2008 22:20

Just want to add that when working at the airport, I used to pass through airport security very late at night after the last flight had gone, there always used to be a huge (and I mean HUGE) sack of booty that they had taken off passengers- make up, perfumes, face creams etc and not crap either, expensive things. I used to wonder if the security used to help themselves to the stuff.

{{Tryharder adds fuel to fire}}

onepieceofbrusselssprout · 23/12/2008 22:23

A colleague recently had some lovely posh toiletries taken from him. He admits that it was his fault (he didn't follow the rules)...however what annoyed him was how pleased the security person was, smirking at my colleague's mistake.

oldraver · 23/12/2008 22:54

Which airport was this at ?? At gatwick last month thye were giving bags free (no they were previously charged for). I put my little bottles in a plastic see through zippered pencil case and it was excepted

littleducks · 23/12/2008 22:59

thats crap, last time i went to the airport they were giving them away free, i can see a charge would be apropriate but £3 thats more than a roll of 25

maybe we should go green on them and suggest a recycling scheme where they collect the bags at the end of the journey for next set of passengers

skrimbo · 23/12/2008 23:14

The airports now seem to have dispensers for bags, you get two for three pounds.

I almost lost my temper, as I had been traveling for ages and were starting to not be asked to remove toiletries, so I stopped bothering, but when I traveled in Oct, I had forgot to put all my minis in a poly bag in my toilet bag, when my bag went through it looked dodgey, with my straightners playing a game of charades and pretending to be a gun.

So out came everything and they put through my toilet bag seperately, he then opened that and pulled all the mini bottles out and told me I had to get a bag for £3, fine but he expected me to leave my bag wide open on the desk, and he tried to plonk all the mnis bottles in my had, and carry them bag to before the queues to where the machine was to get a bag. I asked how I was supposed to use the machine with my hads full, he then decided to dump themin one of the big trays and carry that back to the machine. Argh, thankfully my friend stopped and was going to keep an eye on my open suitcase that had all sorts spread over the desk, but I was still struggleing with a tray trying to find 3 £1 coins, argh!!!! time was ticking away, then I realised I had some cotton buds wrapped in a almost clear sandwich bag in the bottom of my toilet bag, so I grabbed that plonked in the bottles rrammed it in my toilet bag scooped it all up into my case and marched of, I wasn't giving him a chance to object to the see throughness of my bag or the size, I just went, while he stood there open mouthed.

Next month I made sure I had a poly bag and they didn't even aks for toiletries to be out of the hand luggage.

gagamama · 24/12/2008 10:06

It is fecking annoying. I've never been charged for bags though, that would make me go mental too. To be honest I just make suren ALL liquid is in my hold baggage, but medicine is unavoidable. (Having said that, I went to Dublin from Edingburgh recently, and when I arrived at my hotel I found a carton of juice in my hand luggage which had been there since the day before... I was amazed that not only had I forgotten it was there, but that it got through security!)

Jobsworths, definitely. YANBU.

VirginBoffinMum · 24/12/2008 10:12

If only this did stop terrorists I would be happier to read about it. But this sounds like a total scam to me.

FairyMum · 24/12/2008 10:22

YABU a little bit. Its been the rules for ages now. Just come prepared and its no hassle at all.

TinyTimLivesinVictorianSqualor · 24/12/2008 10:34

'chuck a mental'

YANBU to be annoyed though.

bleh · 24/12/2008 10:50

I agree, YANBU. Which airport was it? I've never been charged for a bag before, having flown through numerous airports. It is totally barking, and the other evening, flying back, dying of thirst (with the only option of buying a juicebox for £2 or something ridiculous on Easyjet) that this are using a real threat as an excuse to make shedloads of cash. I have been through very thorough security checks (in Tel Aviv), where they actually know what they're doing and what they're looking for, and they don't get caught up in stupid details (most of the time) and don't CHARGE you to fill their security requirements.

NomDePlume · 24/12/2008 10:52

[inappropriate roffle] @ chuck a mental

MadameCastafiore · 24/12/2008 10:56

Better than being blown up I'd say - these people have an important job to do ensuring our safety - they are not jobsworths and you should have looked up beforehand and adhered to the rules. Rules that we all have to follow even us who have to take oodles of medicine everyday.

Same as a little twat who was having a tantrum when the security buzz started that he couldn;t take him game boy on a plane - he was infront of us - I offered to stamp on it for him to ensure there were no explosive devices in it - his parents weren't too amused but they were just complete chavvy twats!

KimiChristmasCake · 24/12/2008 11:14

Tis stupid, you can take up to 5 100 mil bottles on a plane as long as they are in a magic plastic bag.
Anyone with half a brain in bio chemical engineering could make something very nasty from 500 mil of the right stuff.

I just flew to and from the states and it is more a case of look we are doing something to stop another 9/11 then something actually being done.

Still the whole 3 weeks I was in the U.S their television spent the whole time telling everyone that every day 6 million jehadist Muslims wake up wanting to kill Americans. VERY SCARY...funny all the Muslims I know are too busy with real life to go killing people.

bleh · 24/12/2008 11:18

I work in a related area (preventing terrorist financing) and when people are just blindly following rules, rather than applying them intelligently, it helps no-one and only causes extra problems.

Seriously: does it help if stuff is in the specified clear bag? Does it really?

Quattrocento · 24/12/2008 11:23

The thing is the rules are all subtly different and enforced differently depending which airport you are in. At a rough estimate I have been through 25 different airports this year, and the rules are maddening. This resealable bag schtick. I mean why? What is the logic in that?

SixSpotBurNativity · 24/12/2008 11:44

It is so bonkers isn't it?

I flew with DS3 (aged 4, autistic) in the summer.

At airport security I was asked to get him out of the buggy.

I looked the airport person in the eye and said, Okay, sure, but he's autistic, he can't talk, he will go absolutely bananas and you're going to have to help me with him...

She said, oh okay, just wheel him through then .

VirginBoffinMum · 24/12/2008 21:12

Bleh, this was exactly my point. People being bureaucratic idiots is not what we need right now. The whole point of the clear plastic resealable bag is to ensure that people can be processed quickly through security at a time when BAA are not exactly investing sufficiently in manpower and resources to achieve the same end.

Clear plastic bags are not some sort of magic shield against terrorism. Therefore security employees ought to be able to use their common sense whilst bearing this in mind, especially if it's not too busy or when people are hassled with caring responsibilities, etc. The point of the exercise is to ensure large volumes of certain fluids are not carried on board, not to make a profit out of insisting plastic bags are perfect in specification.

So we should challenge the bureaucrats because we are the ones who are paying them, we are financing these airports and security systems (albeit indirectly) and this is just being used as an excuse for lazy thinking. Then we can get onto actually doing something collectively useful towards preventing terrorism.

TotalChaos · 24/12/2008 21:13

Yanbu, given it's medicine and not a beauty product.