Uli

hi,

arrived in JFK these days on LH400.
most of my friends, and also the people in the shuttle bus from the FCT to the plane believed that they would have to stay in their seat with no blanket one hour before landing, and that washrooms would be closed.

actually, nothing like this happend. i could go to the washrooms 15 mins before landing, and could keep my blanket until short before landing. purser said that his was the case in all service classes. the no-blanket and no-toilet-rules were also never enfored in F class.

FCT security was the same as always. No difference. Only the limo/shuttle driver needs to be checked before entering the plane with you, but no extra checks for FCT pax.

HON service on arrival waited with name plates, but they said "we are right now not able to help you through customs". Anyway, a ten minutes wait it was.

So flying to USA for FCT pax is no different from flying to Asia, besides the HON service at the destination might be more useful there.

off-shore

That is relieving information, I was worried about the crazyness I noticed in the mass media on this topic as I need to go back end of the month.

Here´s some recommended reading found on Bruce Schneier´s Blog:

"Over the past decade, according to BTS, there have been 99,320,309 commercial airline departures that either originated or landed within the United States. Dividing by six, we get one terrorist incident per 16,553,385 departures.

These departures flew a collective 69,415,786,000 miles. That means there has been one terrorist incident per 11,569,297,667 mles flown. This distance is equivalent to 1,459,664 trips around the diameter of the Earth, 24,218 round trips to the Moon, or two round trips to Neptune.

Assuming an average airborne speed of 425 miles per hour, these airplanes were aloft for a total of 163,331,261 hours. Therefore, there has been one terrorist incident per 27,221,877 hours airborne. This can also be expressed as one incident per 1,134,245 days airborne, or one incident per 3,105 years airborne.

There were a total of 674 passengers, not counting crew or the terrorists themselves, on the flights on which these incidents occurred. By contrast, there have been 7,015,630,000 passenger enplanements over the past decade. Therefore, the odds of being on given departure which is the subject of a terrorist incident have been 1 in 10,408,947 over the past decade. By contrast, the odds of being struck by lightning in a given year are about 1 in 500,000. This means that you could board 20 flights per year and still be less likely to be the subject of an attempted terrorist attack than to be struck by lightning.

In 2008, 37,000 people died in automobile accidents -- the lowest number since 1961."

And they call the lottery a tax on lack of mathematical knowledge?


The War On Toothpaste should end subito, I reckon, if somebody started to think.


(attention: This post my contain irony, expl.: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony which has not been marked as such).

callie-girl

10 January, ARN-MUC-CLT (sorry coachrowsey, I knew I would be rushing out of the airport, but I'll message you with my return date!).

At ARN, they still want laptops out and open, can't keep them in sleeves. My sneakers alarmed, oddly enough. Sent back to put them through, I saw the x-ray machine as they went through but I didn't see what about them might have set off the alarm.

On to Munich. Passport stamped at immigration, then on the H level, another check of passport and boarding pass.

Get through that and down the hall, before the H1-6 gates, a full-blown security check. Shoes could be kept on, but a LOT of them were being removed for wanding and sent through x-ray machines, so that was causing some backup.

I was number 6 in line for one machine, 5 machines in service. It took 10 minutes to do the first two folks in my line, 10 minutes for the next one, and then about a minute each for the two directly in front of me. Part of that was shoes being removed. One person at a time.

Laptops out, though they could be kept in sleeves, full wanding and pat-down combined. Bags were being gone through - some more thoroughly than others. The line next to mine, it appeared the carry on bags were being dumped out and repacked. I watched as one purse was turned upside down and every item handled and put back in.

At my turn, the bins with my items were held by one agent while I was wanded and patted down front and back, plus bottoms of feet. I'm extremely ticklish, but once I told her that, she was slightly more forceful. On the one hand, it's appreciated, as it removes the sensation of tickling. On the other hand, it means a slightly more invasive-feeling check.
I stepped to my bins and the woman who went through my bag didn't open any zippers, didn't dump my belongings, just stuck a hand in and moved a few things aside for a look at them. She smiled at me and sent me on my way.

I am still trying to decide how I feel about this.

sindjic

Anyone done GVA?

TravelinWilly

Thanks for the update, Uli.

I LOVE LH. ^ It's all about standards.

Seems silly about the limo driver, but interesting.

Will

seat 1a

This is always the case , has nothing to do with increased security.

TravelinWilly

Really? I've never noticed this before on all/any of my flights out of the FCT (I'm not saying you're wrong, btw), maybe I don't pay very good attention (or my mind is on getting seated and settled). I'll try and pay better attention when I'm back in FRA in a couple of weeks.

seat 1a

This has been my experience in Limo from FCT to gate positions for the last several years. They " wand " the driver as you exit the elevator from the tarmac at gate level.

TravelinWilly

seat 1a, I believe you, but I cannot recall ever explicitly noticing this since I started using the FCT in February 2005 - or maybe I've noticed this and simply forgotten it. Though it's not surprising - I tend to miss and/or forget a lot of the inconsequential things around me (and that's not a good thing, because sometimes I miss important things, too - I once stepped over a homeless person who was laying in an ally in DC and who was in my path, and I swear to God it didn't register until after the friend with whom I was walking pointed it out to me)

Rambuster

The first time I saw this was last week on a USA bound flight.
I never saw this before.
However the "wanding" of the driver was more a pretend "wanding".

SleepOverGreenland

Yes, correct. It has been this way for US bound flights for many years. If the departure to the US is from an outstanding the driver screening happens right down the gangway.

This screening is for everyone entering US bound aircrafts, just passengers and crew members are excempted. But I wouldn't be surprised if they even re-screen the pilot after his visual outside inspection of the aircraft.

TravelinWilly

Flew out of the FCT yesterday, and indeed the wanding was performed at the gate just in front of the entrance to the jetway.

Got a ride to the plane in the new Porsche sedan - not a bad car!

Will