I came through the impressive new Kuala Lumpur airport last week. Right through the terminal, the emigration checks, onto the shuttle train to the remote terminal, right down to the end of the pier to the gate holding room - and only in there did the security check and x-ray of passengers happen.

Thinking about this in the days since, what a better way of doing things. Some European airports are now checking you twice on "sensitive" flights", once at the entrance and again at the gate anyway. It gets away from the mad scrum and increasingly frequent huge queue after checking in. No problem with metal cutlery, in the airside restaurants, or non-travellers going airside. No need to screen terminal employees. No worry about arriving and departing passengers mixing. All connecting passengers get screened, you are not dependent on their original airport. And probably best of all, no worry about the flight closing while you are still in an (undermanned) security queue half a mile away (did I say London Stansted?), because it's down to the individual dispatcher at the gate to get everybody through properly, and they're not going to send the aircraft off with their passengers still coming through.

What do we all think. Of course for European/North American airports there may be a "not invented here" syndrome.