Originally Posted by
SDF_Traveler
I was just at some of these airports in SE Asia over the past week and have experienced many others.
When you put an initial security checkpoint at the airport doors it creates a large bottleneck outside. Some airports handle this better than others and have found creative ways to reduce the bottlenecks, but you still get a bottleneck somewhere in the system -- especially at peak times.
How about the ETD swab procedures they use in China as you near the check-in areas like at PVG - rope off 30, do 30 ETD swabs, release the group of 30. Again a bottleneck, but how about a more random variation of this?
Would seem to be a better solution aside from "false-positives" on the ETD swabs (false positives in quotes as they are technically positive for the trace material assuming its functioning correctly).
Just thoughts here, as I know there's no easy answers, but I suspect something may change after this in a knee-jerk reaction.
There's also what Rome FCO has done with the high security Terminal 5 for USA departures but that creates problems of its own as well.
SDF
At least in the eastern parts of China for the main common carrier passenger airports, they don't create massive, predictable backups of vehicles with passengers in them. As we know, vehicles can be made into bombs rather easily and otherwise transport bombs. A pair of such terrorist vehicles spread out and two gunmen can create massive chaos at these bottlenecks. Some Indian airports have been insane in this way; but as one late senior (then-retired) Indian official (with a lifelong government-assigned team of armed security personnel) told me: "sadly, this is a country where the lives of the ordinary citizens are considered cheap except as a bargaining chip or to score votes".