dylanks

OMG, not gel and body cream?!?

atmorris

It was good to see Fast Track in operation at 9pm on Sunday Night... not!!! Instead the security at North (transiting from Frankfurt to HKG) was down to 2 lanes, which where incredibly slow, and backed up with secondary checks, and people who dont know what to do at security..

T5 Security really is the weak point of the whole BA Operation there.

Compare this to HKG where i was through transit security ohh in around 5minutes flat, with friendly HK security staff

Lefly

I forgot, she had a roll on deodorant too

The lady that checked her bag was not fast, but polite and even sympathetic. It was embarassing (for me, as I didn't know what she had in the bag), time consuming (10/15 min) but not the end of the world.

On the other side, rotten apples like to one mentioned by Pucci stand out more and leave a bad taste that last...
Lucky me I didn't find someone of that kind so far and neither experienced big queues, but I must say that I connected just few times at T5.

catandmouse

Recently had to go through security at NCE and had taken a bottle of water with me as it was a hot day. I of course had forgotten about it by the time I got to security, so my bag ended up being sent for secondary. This happened instantly (no 30 minute wait), with a polite friendly lady explaining there appeared to be a bottle in my bag. I apologized and she handed me the bottle to take a swig before disposing of it.
Isn't that the way it's supposed to be? The agents were friendly, courteous and as far as I can see security was not breached at any time. It's true I speak French fluently and can exchange banter with them, but in theory that could happen at T5 too. Surely it would make the experience more pleasant both for passengers and staff.

hbtr

Last time I went through T5, my bag was selected for secondary screening. There were 7 or 8 bags ahead of mIne and indeed it took almost 30 minutes before they got to mine. The screeners ranged from polite to indifferent, but nobody was impolite - just very, very slow and inefficient. Two different screeners started to look at my bag, then stopped to go do something else, and it took a third to finally look through my bag.

But as annoyed as I was at the process, I was equally annoyed that every single bag ahead of mine did in fact have improperly bagged liquids (no, mine didn't). The process should be faster but I wish people would just pay a little more attention.

IAN-UK

I've always assumed the time penalty for secondary screening is, well, exactly that - a penalty. The system expects us to learn from our mistakes, and avoiding a twenty minute wait for agents to carry out an in-depth search is a very clear incentive to be more careful in future.

I can't see any point in banter with security agents. I let them get on with their job, answer any questions they have for me, and explain anything that requires explanation.

LTN Phobia

How about those people who are 'penalised' by random secondary screening? They have not done anything wrong with packing, so they should not be penalised by being unduly delayed.

I think there are multiple problems. Insufficient staffing, insufficient areas, inefficient processes, inappropriate management of some staff members, non-compliant passengers and inefficient passengers. Altogether they make for a rather unpleasant security experience, although it's not always like that.

hbtr

That assumes that the screeners are always right and the passengers always wrong. In the case I just posted, they didn't find anything improper. I made no mistake but I was still forced to wait 30 minutes.

scottishpoet

That is a huge assumption!! Last few times through lhr I have had my bag pulled for secondary random !aptop and liquids checks. Living abroad I often take food through which frequently gets my bag pulled. What mistake am I to learn from when after every check I pass.

r00ty

I had a similar experience at MXP just last week actually. Took a bottle of water from the office with me, since I knew I was arriving too early to bag drop.

Forgot to remove it before security. Only realised when I landed in London.

IAN-UK

Sure it's tough on random searches, but I write as one who has never yet (touching wood like a maniac) been randomly pulled from the line. I've been secondaried, but usually as result of cheese, christmas pudding or mum's lemon curd; once for a tangle of wires.

The lesson I learned from that was to declare the cheese or anything else which could be suspicious and place it outside my bag with the liquids. I've been conditioned .

(The lemon curd didn't make it, a fact well hidden from mum).

IAN-UK

A sort of correction, only yesterday the archway beeped and the lady in charge asided to a colleague "another random": but while I had close search and my shoes were put through the scanner, my bag trundled through in the normal fashion.

So I'm not suggesting for one moment that random bag search is a myth: just in my sampling it's not so common as it might appear from these pages. YMMV.

DocWatson

I had a school trip to Paris back in the day and it was only when I was doing some cut and paste (old school paper version) with proper scissors mid-flight did I realise how shoddy security at Beauvais is.

Obviously it doesn't connect to LHR, and I don't pretend LHR doesn't occasionally miss things, but I can understand their wish to do an extra check.

r00ty

I think this is the thing though. Air travel is a worldwide phenomenon. It's only as strong as the weakest link. Should the wrong kind of people read FT, they would be getting many useful clues as to exactly WHERE to enter the system.

As for LHR. I would say they're generally good at catching things (like liquid etc in a bag). But, the attitude that also comes with that effectiveness and the speed at which they operate (actually I've not been a victim of the speed issue, yet) means the ends don't always justify the means.

An example of how to do this right? Oddly enough OTP. I had a bar of soap in my hand baggage. I'd agree it'd usually be in main baggage, but this was how it was. The guy spotted it right away on the x-ray, asked to see the bag. Went straight to where the soap was, took it out, checked it over. Put it back, and sent me on my way in a very polite manner. Total delay, under 2 minutes.

Is it really that hard to do?

ReadystEDIgo

Due to the weather at LHR, I missed my connection to the 21.50 on Monday evening back to EDI so was put up overnight and rebooked on the 09.35 on Tuesday.

Nobody in front at the boarding pass check and nobody in front at the scanner. Staff member was very pleasant and had a "is it still raining outside" chat with us and off we went - a thoroughly painless experience which I haven't experienced for a while.

I felt it was fair to post my positive experience in this thread for balance.