modularmayhem

but isnt america the land of the free??

seriously though, the system of pooling bag allowances and group check in works every else in the world.

Grog

Not really. Hold luggage should be adequately screened whether or not the owner actually travels. Think about it: a company courier isn't technically the owner of the cargo in the hold and can't be 100% sure of 100% of its contents. And yet, they fly with it.

Another reality: bags constantly and continually travel without their owner due to missed connections and other IRROPS. A red flag is really only raised when the owner him- or herself chooses to separate themselves from their checked luggage.

hkskyline

Theoretically the airport's security checks should weed out the bombs in checked baggage, which is a separate independent check compared to associating the passenger with the bag. But as Air India 182 showed, airport checks are not always the fail-safe fall-back, so the other bits and pieces of process before it would give added comfort, and perhaps save a few hundred lives.

Screening mail cargo is a different can of worms altogether, but terrorists can't target a specific plane with that sort of plan, unlike a no-show approach.

Voluntarily diverting baggage also will deter terrorists, when a missed connection may mean the bag might not go the intended way on the targeted flight.

Other non-terrorist applications include smuggling narcotics on a group tour, taking advantage of the mixed bag tags to walk away free when the bags are intercepted. The unfortunate passenger tagged to it would be stuck for a few hours explaining their return to freedom.

Saltire74

Airport hold baggage screening has developed incredibly since the Air India tragedy 32 years ago. Not to say it's 100% foolproof now but the technology is advanced enough to screen for hazards in hold baggage.

EK are not the only airline that tags baggage under one pax name in group bookings. I have witnessed this on many airlines over the years.

If you are not comfortable flying EK because of the way they process group booking baggage then my advice would be to choose another airline.

Safe & Happy Travels

S

suley

Not sure what the direction is on this thread, you seem concerned about pooled baggage, the theory that someone bad could be in the group and split at DXB or before boarding. Yes it's possible but you have many if's and comparing to an Air India incident in 1985 to the present day is like comparing todays new cars to one 20 years ago. Equally checkin process is now different and much more advanced, I see this more as scare mongaring when in effect this is a stadard practice for EK and many others, their may be some rules around it but you can wrote to EK if you feel that strongly about it.

I think I agree with @Saltire74 if you dont like the policy, find another airline or just dont book as a group. (Ironicly as I click submit a Emirates advert shows up on TV for Economy, didnt know they did economy adverts)

hkskyline

Many standard practices were exploited by terrorists. What's in the rules today doesn't always mean following them will be safe. We should be progressing with the times.

I don't see how any check-in procedures can prevent this loophole from materializing into something serious. Good that the bad guys haven't caught up with it yet. Aren't they trying hard with more sophisticated methods such as laptops when this is an easy one to use?

eternaltransit

Like everything in the real world, rather than thought experiments of the internet, there is the tradeoff between ensuring maximum rigidity of process and control, and usability.

For instance, we could put breathalysers in cars to test before you start the engine, or make mobile telephones become disabled when travelling at speed to stop people using them when driving.

We could force people to strip naked at airports and to have their luggage searched individually to stop banned goods from getting on planes - after all, in 2015 the TSA failed 95% of its tests to detect explosives and weapons, so there's scope for improvement there.

But we don't, because the inefficiency that causes and the inconvenience to all users isn't outweighed by the incremental benefits it gives.

Every time you are exposed to something you aren't in control - whether that's transiting IST during an attack, stepping outside your house and walking along the road where people driving past might be crazy/under the influence/driving poorly maintained cars - you are taking a calculated risk.

You obviously feel that positive passenger bag match is a requirement for your travels as a necessary security precaution. Airlines, who incorporate threat and security planning into their operations - not least if they want to get a licence to fly to many places in the world - do not feel this is necessary and think their current procedures are adequate, given the risk/probability tradeoff.

Since most (all?) airlines have a similar policy - groups are tagged to the group, represented by one traveller - I would say that air travel is probably not for you.

hkskyline

How hard is it for the passenger to identify his/her bag at check-in and the baggage tag and boarding pass in the passenger's name be issued and stuck to the bag? Is that really hard to do?

I wonder how the American air safety authorities would look at this, as well as Homeland Security.

eternaltransit

Given that EK - and every other airline that flies to the US - do this with the full knowledge of the FAA and that PPBM isn't required in the US (you can do a quick Google to find out the debate about PPBM and FAA policy on domestic flights) in all cases, and the operational standard elsewhere is that either you know who owns every bag on a plane, or that you know the owner is on board the plane (which is satisfied by the group condition), then I expect they are totally fine with it?

As said upthread - if there is a passenger mismatch, the entire group baggage is offloaded and PPBM is then enforced.

As to whether it is hard to do - clearly the decision has been made by regulators that the incremental benefit is not worth the operational hassle, e.g. in the event of IRROPS and bags have to travel separately. Clearly economic impacts are taken into account, as the CAPM/CAPPS system the FAA introduced in 1998 required a report to Congress about them.

PPBM isn't a new idea - it goes back to the 90s. The fact that in 2017 it hasn't been globally mandated should indicate to you the attitude of authorities about the risk/benefit trade off they think it has.

You are, of course, free to have a different view to global regulators about aviation security procedures - and if you think the risk is unacceptable then no one is forcing you to fly. It is just the same as getting into a cab: you put your trust into the driver, the car, the maintenance, the highways system.

nzkarit

Yes it is hard. I would guess the most common group would be family groups who pool baggage. With family groups the bags belong to the family not a person. As seeing have multiple bags clothes etc are split of across bags so if one bag goes AWOL people still have some clothes to wear. Also when travelling as a group the mass or pieces aren't equally shared as one person might be taking more, which is the great benefit to pooled baggage.

Could you imagine the ill will towards airlines if they stopped pooled baggage?

With family groups they aren't likely to split up part way and also tour and sports groups are normally in command of one person who keeps track of them and herds them to the gate etc.

Have there actually been actual issues from pooled baggage?

Personally people like the TSA need to firstly focus on actually detecting more than 5% guns etc which I see as bigger risk than pooled baggage.

Also looking at the laptop ban (reading between the lines) it is showing that in checked baggage the explosives that can get past the security screening aren't a threat to the plane if they are just on the plane but actually need to be placed against the fuselage to have an effect.

s0ssos

OOh, scary!

hkskyline

Doesn't the US require positive bag match on international flights? I suppose they don't have jurisdiction over the outports where US-bound connecting bags are loaded to make sure they comply with US standards.

Positive bag match was an issue in the Lockerbie bombing : http://edition.cnn.com/2013/09/26/wo...03-fast-facts/

Whether it originated from a single passenger's journey or a pool of group passengers, the risk is pretty much the same. Just a matter of how the rules are circumvented.

s0ssos

So how does this stop terrorists who are willing to die?

DYKWIA

This thread should probably be moved to the Safety & Security forum, as it's not really EK specific.

s0ssos

If you truly want to "progress" with the times you should start re-thinking security. A lot of what has been done in the West isn't about preventing crimes, but about catching the criminal. Cameras are usually used for after the fact, for trying to track down the criminal. Trials are done in the same way.
Plus, the deterrent mechanisms presume criminals are afraid of certain things, like bodily harm, death. But some (like those mentally gone wrong) don't care and go on to commit mass murders. They don't care if a police officer comes and shoots them. Some want to die.
In certain cultures, I would say more crime-free cultures, the biggest deterrent is shame. Definitely not the case in America.

If you keep dwelling on the past, you might as well be like those "security authorities" (so you say, because I believe they aren't authorities, as they know nothing about security) who lament the loss of the ability to actually "tap" into communications. Or you can be like the people who lament the lost of manufacturing jobs-well, just to let you know, it won't come back.