Hello from Charles de Gaulle airport where I have so far had my passport and ticket checked 8 times and I still have to board the plane, so can expect another 3 at least.
I have also been made to undress, redress, rearrange my luggage and pass through an X-ray scan (Scam?) machine.
And all this for the sake of “Security”. Or so we are told.
I am going to dispell a myth right now. It is not security, never has been and never will be. It is business.
The so called security firms are subcontract outfits pulling staff mainly from the worst suburbs around Paris.
The service is sold to the airport for ever increasing cost to provide more and more hindrances to passengers.
"we’ll charge you to make them take off their shoes, scan their bags, empty their pockets, ask dumb questions, buy a plastic bag (kerching-a-ling-a-ling)and put their minuscule toiletries in it, confiscate a bottle of water and sell them the same bottle airside.
I think you get the picture.
Security ? Cods wallop!
Next time you’re in an airport and going through this whole shebang, just have a quiet self satisfied thought as to how you really are contributing to the local economy - because there is only one person paying, and that’s you.
One last thought I’ve had my ticket for two months, perhaps real security should be carried out before we reach the airport?
@ Chris C. Yup, been there.After being 'disarmed' at Easyjet Luton of my raisor wish I had the wit to say I intended to shave the hostesses ( probably more appropriate for Air Greece or Turkey...)
Oh how I agree with you Nick, I once had a corkscrew confiscated at Exeter Airport, and the woman who took it was not in the least amused when I asked if she thought I had it in mind to screw the pilot!
Here is a sensitive one for me. I have a Reveal cardiac monitor implanted in my chest. In various supermarkets and shops it sets off check out alarms. I carry a reader. In the reader's case is a card with details about what I have and who to contact if in doubt. The security man in one Carrefour store was clearly disinterested and illiterate because he made me strip in a little booth, found nothing, then made me walk through an alarm again, which went off... He still refused to read the card in my little case.
So I am looking forward like the plague to airports. This chip, about the size of a flash, is in for three years. Nothing actually wrong with the ticker, but now it is in, the cardiologists decided they'd like to use me as a test of this kind of device anyway.
Of course, when I do get back to work and if contracts pick up I must travel. Some journeys may involved at least two connecting flights. How many people on airport security desks read French or know about cardiac monitoring devices? Al Quaeda is everywhere is the world, guess who will no doubt be suspected of membership in due course? The sub-contractors' goons at airports are going to have been cast in the same mould as the Carrefour goon above without doubt, illiterate and not caring but earning their bosses a small fortune for having licence to molest whosoever they wish. Boufffff! Good flight Nick!
Perhaps you should not have worn a burqua?
Or there again ,as per a May MailOnline story recently pointed out to me, maybe you should have worn a burqua...