Originally Posted by
Spiff
We and the UK are pretty much alone on the shoe stupidity.
Right in my experience. The shoe carnival had been in place during some time at the UK's request, but was dropped anywhere else. Though some shoes still can set the alarm off.
Flights within other countries (non-EU) are not subject to the liquid idiocy that I have seen.
Care to expand? The regulation say you have to keep your liquid in a kip-compliant bag. Within France, I had a problem with a large bottle of aerosol I had to check, but I usually have my kippie bag inside the rest of my carry-on and they don't appear to care. So it might be more relaxed, but there is liquid idiocy...
They also enforced recently laptop out-the-bag harassment, even though it was deemed not useful by the EU authorities (there was some measure of hope they would drop it, but no news ever since).
On the other hand, there are some airports that pat everyone, even if you don't alarm the detector. But I think it's pretty specific to some airport (mostly a reason for me to take the high speed train to get on a plane instead of flying out of my home airport).
One thing I have never witnessed is the kind of attitude people here atttribute to TSA employees.
The only reason the other countries harass passengers in the manner that they do on flights to US/UK is because the US has bullied them into doing so.
Indeed harassment is more strict when flying to the US.