Recently I was working in Burnie, Tasmania in Australia and thought the security in the local airports were rediculous. I understand that Tasmania is very rural and that most people on the island are wonderful, but you never know. Anyways here is the situation at the Burnie and Devonport Airport. You drive up to the check in, check in your bags, walk outside and onto your Qantas or REX flight, no security check or anything. Once you arrive in Melbourne, you get off the plane, walk outside on the Tarmac, enter Melbourne Airport and then go thought a metal detector. I thought it was pretty amusing.

I'd prefer this to the nonsense in the United States any day of the week.

You mean you were able to take a flight without first being treated like a prison inmate, subject to the presumption of guilt and a warrantless search? Sounds like what a travel experience should be.

Until an armed sicko gets on the plane, it is a good thing.

Some of us are old enough to remember when this was what air travel in the US was like too

Given that the Rex (and I assume QantasLink) flight are turboprops (Saab 340 and ?DHC-8) there isn't much of a security concern - there are more people on the average city bus and realistically the amount of damage that one of these aircraft could cause is significantly smaller than a car-bomb or other terrorist tool, and the range means you can't actually hijack them to anywhere.

Once you get to MEL or SYD or another major airport (depending on which regional airport you left from) you have to go through security etc before you transfer to a jet. I know in Sydney you have to catch a bus from your plane to the terminal so you aren't exactly wandering around unescorted.

So basically I think the logic is sound - risk of terrorism is extremely low, risk of hijacking the same (and of course those planes are so small that you can't exactly more around freely), cost of full screening at every regional airport is prohibitive and cost of closing those airports also prohibitive.

Before people worry about full security screening of these sort of flights they should install full screening for all trains and buses (which I also don't think is practical).

I agree Andrew, I just thought it was unique and funny. Never seen it before and you still can never know what can happen. Maybe not to the degree of 9/11 but where a crazy man dosent want to die by himself.

Try flying Polynesian Airlines intra-Samoan islands. There is no security at all! And the cockpits are open too.

Same thing in NZ. Non-jet services dont require security checkpoint.

Thank God not all countries have become paranoid.

hello.

i have been lurking here for a while (posted a few times) but mostly just enjoy reading the insightful posts about flying and even learning some new tips to make travelling easier/more enjoyable. i have tried (and succeeded till now) to stay out of any heated security discussions, even though i do have some opinions. but i really must say something now.

do you really mean what you wrote, magexpect? i'm not trying to be disrespectful in any way (i promise) but i find it really hard to believe that 9/11 happened so long ago that you don't remember that PEOPLE DIED. a lot of people. are their families just paranoid? is the govt. now paranoid for wanting to keep it from happening again? you (and most others on this board as far as i can tell) may see dozens of inconsistencies and problems with security but i think most people in this country expected there to be other attacks on us by now and IT HASN'T HAPPENED.

now here's my question. could this fact be due at all (even a liitle bit??) to the new, time consuming, annoying, oftentimes inconsistent, and frustrating security that was put in place?

(of couse this question is for anyone not just magexpect)

thanks for reading.

Yep, that's what I recall flying out of Nelson (NSN) to Wellington (WLG) a couple years back. Was thinking the same thing as the OP.

It is virtually impossible to stop someone who does not care if they die too - 9/11 was the result of a policy that had been in effect since the 70's - give them the plane - they fly to Cuba ( or wherever) - everyone gets released and they end up in jail. We did not ( and in my mind - still do not) understand the mindset that says they dont care if they die to. Do you seriously think that the scans you go thru at the airports in the US today will stop a determined terrorist. I continually go thru with cigarette lighters ( Remember Richard Reed) and who knows what else I have forgotten to take out of my purse. Sorry to disillusion you, but most of us on here feel that the purpose of the security is to make the general public feel better.

Hello hedur,

Yes, I meant what I said. I did not mean it disrespectfully to anyone, especially since I knew some of the victims of 9/11.

You just cannot protect yourself from every danger lurking. 9/11 was a dreadful event as well as the dozens of other terrorist attacks that happened in the world, be it in England, France, Italy, Kenya, Yemen or where ever.

What we are now experiencing in things security is a joke. I have lived with security people for the last twenty years in all kinds of situations. I have talked with a lot of them about airport security. The risks are as high as they were before. The system has so many faults that anybody determined can come through and pull something similar again.

The most efficient would be sealed cockpit doors. That would prevent a lot as far as possible terrorist passengers would be concerned.

Does this enormous apparatus checking your ID twenty times as well as your ticket buying habits prevents anything? I'll answer with a definite no. This is just the beginning of an infringement on your freedom of movement, liberties and an unsufferable birth of a police state with very dark aims, unknown at present.

One has to be watchful, yes, but not paranoid.

No. The time consuming, annoying, frustrating, inconsistent, money-wasting, airline-industry-sinking, sexual-abuse-inviting, TSA screening (it's disingenuous to even call it security) is all for show.



I'd gladly put my safety where my mouth is. If I had the option to fly on a completely separate domestic air transport system with no privacy invasions or bodily molestation whatsoever, I would fly it. I think many others would too. The risks are exactly parallel to the risks we all take when we take trains, ride buses, attend sporting events, or just go about our lives in the big city.

Hedur, you're advocating handing the bad guys exactly what they want - they want us to give up our way of life and feel afraid. I'm not afraid. I was on an airplane on September 11, 2001, that landed in Boston at 8:35am. I am much more afraid of Americans allowing their government to spy on and molest its citizens than I am of the consequences of discontinuing airport screening.