LCY Security
 

Why is it that security at LCY was a complete mess this morning, with queues spilling well into the "liquid preparation area" when it should have been a morning like any other?

And then one crosses the channel. Arriving in FRA where one would expect a complete meltdown of civilization, and the only thing to be seen is a 30 yard queue in front of the LH counters and a group of (fairly disgruntled looking) strikers.

And to bring this on topic: There were 3 empty seats this morning, despite everything being zeroed out...

Today the security awareness level has been taken up a couple of notches. It is not just at LCY.

Procedure exactly the same as any other day. I had enough time to observe. And even if, this would be the time to call in extra staff.

Monday morning at LCY is often a complete zoo and should be avoided wherever possible. I quite regularly see queues stretching towards the entrance doors when I exit after flying into LCY on a Monday morning.

There was nothing special at LGW North this morning.

LCY invested in expanding the screening area (with a much more convoluted walk for departing PAX), but then decided to downsize staff and keep security capacity at 50 percent.

Also, LCY screening staff 'appear' much slower.

Result = poor security experience compared to LHR.

Don't forget all the people shouting instructions too rather than doing any screening,

Wirelessly posted (iPhone 3G: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 6_1_3 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/536.26 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/6.0 Mobile/10B329 Safari/8536.25)

LCY does have a T5-esque high ratio of security staff standing around observing. Thankfully they generally aren't as unpleasant to deal with as those in T5.

I now tend to go through very off peak though.

The inefficiency at LCY security has gotten a lot worse. Do they ever have all the X-rays and lanes open? And don't start me on the body scanner.

With all Lufthansa flights cancelled, all ex-LON flights today to anywhere in mainland Europe have been extremely busy with folk trying to get close to Germany and then travelling by train/car.

Extra staff cannot always be summoned at will at short notice. There is a finite number of staff.

That is one of the UK's weak points. You get what you pay for. You can have staff on stand by, but you need to pay them for that. Which incidentially applies to many things. Be it long haul planes or grit during winter months, the common answer in the UK seems to be that one can not possibly be prepared for extreme events. Which in itself would be common sense, but the UK definition of extreme tends to be a bit extreme.

I’ve been flying out of LCY every Friday for the past 6 months and they changed the security arrangements ~3 weeks ago. At the time I check-in they now have 2 conveyor belts operating but only metal detector (used to be 2). This soon causes a queue of people waiting and then then the trays back-up on the conveyor belts because the passengers aren’t getting through to unload them and it grinds to a halt.

Last Friday was the worst so far and I was in the security queue for ~25 mins (so much for the 15 min check-in time) and it was pretty tight for my flight. As a result of that, I’ve changed to LHR this Friday (and to visit the F lounge again ) so that is 1 passenger less in the queue.

There seems to be no real logic to when the "old" security point is opened. At the liquids prep area you are turned left instead of right. I departed at 1500 last week, which is a pretty slack time, and was diverted through here. Going this way you also don't get the boarding card admission gates, which are pretty un-intuitive and completely fail to cater for groups, even families, where one traveller holds all the boarding cards.

Regarding the actual arrangements, back in the days when Dermot Desmond owned the airport (1995-2006) the management, and indeed the owner, took a direct interest in the quality and standards of the security controls, along with much else. Since sale to GIP for, to be honest, far too much money, the only concern now is ROI on that "far too much".

They are however signing their own death warrant.

Once Cross Rail comes on stream LHR will be only 35 minutes from the Wharf for a proper airport experience. 9 times out of 10 I actively prefer T5 security to that at LCY because T5 rarely seem to make things up as they go along and normaly work pretty well. I have found the T5 security staff far friendlier than those at LCY for a good couple of years now.

If LCY cannot fulfil a niche as a small airport with rapid entry to boarding gates and exit upon arrival it won't have a very long life.

I live in the Wharf and often choose to travel from LHR for a better overall experience and decent overhead space. Once Crossrail comes online that choice is a no brainer.