Groped at Gatwick
 

As I flew back from LGW on Tuesday, I was pleased to clear security without taking shoes off or removing my laptop from my case. When I asked the screener if he wanted me to take the laptop out, he said, "No, that's an American thing," which made me laugh.

But then, when I got to the departure GATE, there was another screening. One security lady went all through my bags and another one felt me up, WAY more than any TSA screener has ever done. All I had on was a thin knit dress and underwear, nothing bulky or baggy, and she ran her hands all over my torso and down both sides of both legs. There was no metal detector, wand, or beeping involved, it was just a gratuitous pat-down.

I thought this level of groping particularly odd.

This is not carried out by BAA security, The secondary screening is carried out on flights to the US on behalf of the American government by independantly appointed people. A total waste of time as the security is perfectly good enough at the landside/airside search. My partner had something similar happen last year.
Im sorry it happened to you but please dont blame the Brits.

That's right. The US airlines hire contractors (although the relationship thereof is not always the most transparent) which is suppose to supplement security.

A letter of complaint to the CEO of the airline concerned is appropriate, with a copy to the US Department of Transportation. This sort of groping is totally out of line and is probably illegal in the UK.

We've experienced similarly "vigilant" screening more than once at the gate in MUC when boarding UA for IAD.

Welcome to the hell of flying from Europe to the USA on a US-owned carrier. My personal favorite is at Roissy/Charles de Gaulle: I saw an ICTS agent going through a woman's HAIR.

It's all groping all the time on the US carriers.

Air France and some other carriers have gate security inspection, but it's nowhere near as elaborate as the American carriers.

There are many reasons to fly on a foreign carrier and this is one of them. I think the lack of free booze in economy class is worse, but the groping is pretty awful.

Too bad that most people will say that the security is a wonderful idea, it makes them feel better, and they love losing their dignity.

So what do you look like?

I can't believe I clicked on this thread! Talk about "bait and switch"! :mad:

On the main page it came up as:

:)

Oddly enough, I went through LHR today and noticed an odd thing.

I got to enter the boarding area through the First/Business Class entrance. Got no profiling, and was not subject to secondary rifling.

Then I noticed the coach class entrance, where about nine out of every 10 folks were getting their baggage rifled though. None of the people who walked through the elite line had to do that.

That is odd, as when you go through the first/business door you should be directed round to the front of the gate area, where the same moat dragon will look at your stub & decide whether or not to send you off for a 2ary.

That said, I've only ever been hassled at LHR when in coach. At LGW on the other hand :mad:

Having held a management position with one of these companies many years ago I know something about what goes on.

The main problem is common to the US or the UK (specifically these contractors): you pay peanuts and you get monkeys! These people are often on close to minimum wage and yet we expect them to have customer service skills, sensitivity, some awareness of what is going on in the world, etc.... For the kind of money that these companies are willing to pay, you don't really get highly qualified people.

The airlines are mandated to carry out these extra checks by the FAA (and are inspected at regular intervals - talk about a dog and pony show!). But obviously, finances being what they are, the airlines pressure the contractors to do the job with the minimum number of people and of course regularly put the contracts out to bid which further puts pressure on pay levels.

It always amazed me that security staff were in the job of actually protecting a company's assets and human lives and yet they were treated as third-class staff. If qualified staff were hired, they were given a decent wage, and appropriate training given (to both staff AND management), you would see a completely different situation. But we all know that just isn't going to happen because the cost of security would be exorbitant and it just doesn't "put bums in seats" as the expression goes.

I will finish with a (true) story that happened to me some 15 years ago at Heathrow when I was with TWA. I had a visit from the police early one morning to say that they had come to question one of my screeners from the late night shift. He had apparently wanted to inspect a passenger closely and had taken him to the nearest public lavatory to "pat" him down and inspect more closely. There really was no malicious intent and the guy was a really enthusiastic but polite young man, he just had a really strange idea of what his job entailed.....Needless to say profuse apologies were proferred (which the passenger, showing amazingly good grace accepted) and more training was given.

Then there's the one about the Nigerian we found sleeping in the x-ray machine after having missed his flight to Lagos (same check-in area)...ah but that really would be OT.

Flying back from CDG to IAH last month, they was no type of search at the departure gate. Everyone just gave their BP at the gate and off we went to the a/c. Maybe they figured only check certain flights there.

Were you on a CO-operated flight for CDG-IAH? US carriers do the secondary "gate check" more than most any other carriers on Europe-US routes.

And yet we're told that the terrorists out there prefer to fly in F ... I think it's more a matter of the average coach pax more likely being a "security at any cost" person than the average F or C pax and thus more likely to accept that sort of behavior.

YES, very similar to the TSA secondary checks at the gates. You definitely wait for the same gendered person to go through first and get secondaried. They don't always pick out the first person, but just wait until they pick someone out before you go at CDG.

:eek: :eek:

This was Gate 22 in T3 yesterday. It's as the very end of the hallway, perhaps it's a different configuration that other gates. I think it is, but I am not sure.

The Elite line enters you into the middle of the room. The regualr line enters you all the way from the back.

What was also amazing were the number of "riflers," a steady stream of about five or six of them, passing each bag on down to the one furthest at the end of the line who is unoccupied.

Yeah, 22 is a pain - the longest walk in the terminal :(

Still, IME they put up one of those stretchy elastic barrier things to guide you back to the regular moat dragon.

Those guys are super! I remember one insisting I remove all metal from my jacket, then passing it *around* the WTMD before handing it back to me and taking no further interest :rolleyes:

In my experience, Air France does the following for all US-bound flights:
1. ICTS/Securicor interview prior to check-in
2. Random hand inspection of checked bags
3. Passport and boarding pass check at gate. Provision of US entry documents.
4. Random or less-than-random pat downs and shoe inspections for some flights. Sometimes it's all male passengers (I'm not kidding.), sometimes it's every 4th or 5th passenger, sometimes it's totally random.

The US carriers at Charles de Gaulle:
1. ICTS interview prior to check in
2. Random or non-random inspection of checked bags
3. Second interview and document inspection prior to boarding.
4. Random or less-than-random VERY THOROUGH pat downs and bag inspections, first with wand and then without, including hair inspection, shoe inspection, and detailed inspection of hand baggage.

And--I agree-things seem to be MUCH more thorough at Gatwick than Heathrow. I can't imagine why.

Not more thorough, just more intrusive and annoying. Not the same thing at all. :(

More US airlines there, and thus they have more "influence" on "security"?

Once at Gatwick for an AA flight the security contractors wanted to inspect my rollaboard as I was checking in. I told them it was to be carried on, not checked, but they inspected it anyway. Not only was it a really cursory check, but of course this was all outside security, so I could go from the security check to put all kinds of stuff in my suitcase after that if I had wanted to. Totally senseless.

I've been out of the business for a while and I don't know the current situation but AA used to be the ONLY international US carrier that used its' own security staff rather than a contractors on a systemwide basis. They took it REALLY seriously too with regard to customer service and quality of staff. Has that changed now? It would be a pity...

They appeared to be contractors to me at the time, but I cannot be certain.