flysurfer

Hello? UA and AA routinely seperate pax and luggage and transport them on different flights. So you should never ever fly U.S. carriers again for fear of exploding in mid-air (remember, even shampoo is lethal these days). I hope you understand and agree.

Btw, congrats for enjoying walking/standing around and lining up at LHR at 2 hr transfers. One pax less to compromise my 30 minute transfers at airports using prodedures I understand and agree with a bit more. ^

nixande

And to add to this - Stansted has checked my stuff much harder than LHR does, I do always get a explosive scan on my elctrical equipment there.

It would be interesting to look again at the numbers of pax travelling through lhr on every day.

As for avoiding it - well there are always different options. But I find it rather more annoying to be touched on my whole body already two times in the states than I am with a line at the FCC.

Green Dragon

Thank you, LHRGoon, for giving us a glimpse of the inside perspective. I sympathise with you, and I'm sure that you will eventually find a job you can be more proud of.

I'll add my urgings to the others to either find a more soul-satisfying employment, or find a way to go to college. You can learn a lot by going to college, and not just in the classes themselves.

As for the rules, it was interesting to me to find out some of the reasoning behind them. I knew the rules, but haven't had to fly into LHR since they've been instituted. I do have a question - when I flew Virgin last summer (into LHR) they instituted a weight limit on the carryon I had. Do you know if BA and Virgin still have or enforce a weight limit, in addition to the one carry-on rule? Many people bring video cameras and DSLRs, as well as laptops - those three items alone could put a single carryon over the weight limit of 6kilos (13 lbs) Virgin had last year. I will be less annoyed if they've done away with that weight restriction. I understand you may not know, as it is an airline rule rather than an airport/security rule. I just checked Virgin's website, and it seems still to be listed

Thanks for your post, and good luck!

TEX277

A warm welcome to FT to the OP. I hope that your stay here is not a short one and you may well benefit from your visit.

I am somewhat unsure what to make of the OP. I can see it being 'Post of the Year' and can nearly see the humour in the post. Unfortunately though, I dare say that no other nation could have spawned such a jobsworth mentality than we evidently have here in the UK.

I know of several good ex-colleagues, and some poor ones, applying for BAA security vacancies at LGW. The fact that the ones who were unable to think for themselves found themselves as BAA employees, whilst the fully functional humans were rejected, told me all that I need to know about the 'quality' of BAA security.

What I find to be truly scary is that the OP really believes that all of these rules actually make us safe. Having worked at LGW, LHR and STN with full airside access and knowing the system, I know that this is a false belief. Without doubt, it is possible for firearms, knives etc to be transported airside without the green robots' knowledge.

jragosta

Seems to me that the FCC should be closed for incompetence, not allowing a passenger an extra bag. Connecting in London ranks slightly below having a root canal in my list of life desires.

Please come back and post here when you've done that - so we all know which business to stay away from.

jragosta

Why should the rules apply to the French? They're above all that.

House

In Europe, the passenger bag matching rule has been around for a long time following a Pan Am aircraft exploding over a small Scottish town called Lockerbie. I for one am happy it's there. It doesn't close every loophole (no security measure ever will) but it does close one of the more obvious ones.

There are plenty of security rules (US and European) to get angry about - this isn't one of them. And for the ones you do get angry about, people should target the anger at the governments and agencies who make up and police the rules, not the security line attendants, flight attendants and others who end up having to live with them - they are no more responsible for these rules than you or I.

TEX277

Not when you consider that the current threat comes from suicide bombers/hijackers.

LHRGoon

Things to look out for
On a Monday morning, if you watch carefully, you'll see these beautiful Russian women decked head to toe in designer gear. Next to them will be oafish men dressed usually in leather jackets. These young women make a trip every week back to mother Russia bringing usually £6000 with them. The deal is they get a free trip to mama and the oafish men get their money deposited back home. I think it's in the grey area of legal as they know not to exceed their limit on how much to take out the country. The guards have told me they usually strap the money to their waists scrolled up.

Rumour mill.
I've heard from cleaners and guards alike that this is true. 1 month ago 9 Polish cleaners were fired for soliciting sex from the guards. They'd use the disabled loo in T3 at £20 a BJ.

I actually don't work for BAA. Because of the short notice of the new rules BAA actually had to employ temping staff. We were called in to work on a day by day basis. This happened when the bag size was severely restricted. I joined when the rules had been relaxed to one bag or IATA size but no liquids. Everyday we'd have a dozen bottles of perfume, some new, a few litres of alcohol and more lip gloss than a whore could use. It's just since continued. If you have a look. The people checking bags and doing liquids don't have airside passes. You could question their authority but most will get somebody with some authority to make your life hard. Search your bags for 10 min and give you a full over.
I havn't read the FAQs of this board so don't know what an OP is. I don't usually write in forums but needed to vent. If OP is indeed me then you've got me a lil wrong. A guard and policeman told me that aside from a spring and the bullets, the Glock that police wear can pass through a scanner. It's made of plastic.

The security risk that i'm most scared of, most probably because of working their everyday, is landside security. After decades of prohibiting bins, BAA have started using them again (Because of liquid compliance). This coupled with the fact that on a busy Monday morning they'll be a packed queue of 500 people waiting to be screened. They're zigzagged to get as many per sq ft. That's dangerous.

I'm in agreement that practically everyone who works there is a fool. BAA are constantly recruiting people to fill 500 odd roles ( in anticipation of T5). They're all trained with the new rule set and enforce them to the t. The old guards, if they see a mother with over the counter cough medicine that is over 100ml, they in all likeliness wouldn't take it away from her. I'm even in agreement that most people who work with me are fools. One girl can spell FUDGE with the grades of her GCSEs. To non UK residents - GCSEs - Test papers taken at 16 and graded A B C D E F G U. I personally never knew it went that low.
Carry on weight restrictions apply to all airlines. Not many enforce them though. In T1 I think only BMI enforce it. In T4 BA enforce it. They only enforce the rules if it gets out of hand. People carrying everything to avoid excess baggage charges tend to fly out of T3 and T4. The reason I believe, is due to it interfering with fuel calculators that the airlines use.
To stop people taking their laptops out and cramming all and sundry inside, if we see that the laptop clearly can't fit inside the bag then we'll ask you to put it inside. Otherwise we don't mind.

You're allowed to have as many bags as you like airside. Putting things in your pockets is far too varied to try and manage. How much is too much.

Ladies sometimes circumvent the handbag thing by wearing a coat over their handbag. It works most of the time. If it doesn't, you'll get harassed to no end. Some airline staff now try and sneak passenger bags through staff access. If they're caught they lose their airside pass.

To me getting a new line of employment. I only ever intended to do this job for 2 weeks. The temporary thing never materialized. At the moment i'm managing to save up quite a bit though and have set up a small business. Nothing major, but it's a start.

House

The current threat comes from terrorists, who will keep on inventing new ways to blow things up, cause fear and general mayhem. They are quite capable of going back to a form of attack that was tried and tested. Given the choice between blowing themselves up and putting a bag on a plane and waving the aircraft goodbye from the end of the runway, which would you do?

One of the problems with the current security regime is that it's entirely reactionary. It doesn't try (at least publicly) to anticipate what people might do next. It also fails to balance the probability of someone doing something against the inconvenience caused by trying to prevent it.

Positive Passenger Bag Matching is well established in Europe, the airports are largely designed to handle it. The inconvenience factor in maintaining it is low, and the threat it is designed to protect partly against remains very real.

TEX277

Of course, that is the problem with the current threat. What I, or you, would do is totally irrelevant. The culture, belief and philosophy of Islamic extremists does not equip them with the same sense of self-preservation that we share.

LHRGoon

sorry. I posted this already. Where's that delete button.

nigelloring

OP = Original Poster = LHRGoon (in this case)

nixande

Yes. THEY do it, but generally you cannot "rely" on that as somebody who wants to make trouble which is the point.

And nope, my luggage travels with me. As there are only 2-3 flights a day to my destinations I am fairly sure that this luggage was on the same flight with me.


Oh I go through that as fast as I can to 'enjoy' the other side aka lounges and sometimes specific shopping. It is just that I have trouble when flying, so those "waiting" times are welcomed recovery times before flying again.

Having the choice on a transatlantic travel I can do the very rushed version of saving perhaps 3-4 hours on a at least 20 hour travel day feeling miserable all along or 'enjoy' the lounges for those hours and arrived relaxed and without being ill on the other side of the pond.

Lines are still annoying and I'd prefer working beaming like on enterprise but as that is still futuristic ...

TEX277

ROTFLMAO!!!!!!

I am most certainly starting to warm to you. The humour is more evident^ . I was referring to a good old fashioned steel handgun rather than a plastic Glock. Give me back my airside pass, immunity from prosecution and .44 Magnum and I'll see you airside.

PS. Re: FUDGE