Airport security is rubbish. Fact.

[kopite]

The airport going out from liverpool airport where pretty on the ball when i went through last time.

I had my camera in hand luggage with a pod bean bag and a load of wires in the same pocket. My bag got flagged up and checked as they thought it looked quite bomb like Was a bit scary at the time escpecially as all the other passengers where staring at me as my bad was still in the machine and there where all stuck the other side

After a chat and explaining what it was they let me through but told me to make sure I take it out of my bag and show it to security on the flight back.

[Steve]

You can kill somebody with a biro or a credit card if you know what you're doing (don't worry, I don't - Jack Bauer does though).

Terrorism on planes, certainly through highjacking - is really hard to pull off now, because people saw 11/9 and know what will happen to them if they don't fight back.

Security is, as has been said, all theatre. All you need is someone in the inside... baggage handlers and security staff aren't that well paid, are they? All security ever seems to do is respond to the most recent threat that has already passed.

Intelligence thwarts terrorism, which is ironic given the dumb fear many people exhibit when surrendering their freedoms in the name of security.

[helpiveimploded]

I was going through airport security in Dublin a couple of years ago, and I had decided to wear a sort of zip-up jumper thing with nothing underneath it. I wore trousers and stuff as well, but they're not involved in the story. As I was going through the metal detector it went off and the middle-aged security guy did the usual thing, scanning me with the handheld thing, before noticing my jumper.

HIM: What's that?

ME: It's a sort of jumper thing. Quite nice, don't you think?

HIM (impatiently): No, what's underneath it?

ME: My chest. Possibly also some hair.

HIM (forcefully): I'm going to need you to unzip it.

ME: It was the chest hair thing, right? Nobody can resist that.

HIM: Hands by your sides please sir...

It was at this point that he started to unzip my jumper, ignoring my objections, and got about halfway down before realising that I was in fact, telling the truth, and there was nothing underneath it but a rather pudgy abdomen. And that was it. I was waved through.

Just to clarify, I'm a bespectacled, kind of pinkish Scottish guy; hardly a prime candidate for harbouring some sort of nipple bomb or whatever it was of which he suspected me. Maybe he has a certain quota of unlikely suspects each day to offset the obvious racial profiling of which security is guilty. Anyway, for this reason, I think security might be just ever so slightly too caffeinated, either that or totally paranoid. So I'm disgusted that anyone got through with liquids at all, when I was very nearly milked on my way through. For shame!

[speardane]

I don't have an issue with airport security itself - as long as they staff it properly!

Planes pretty much run to schedules - most takeoff and land on time, the airlines know how many seats are taken...

Why is it such a problem to ensure enough security and passport staff - it seems to me whenever a rush of passengers hit passport control it's time to go for a break...

As far as I can see most of this is a scam so they cane "sell" fasttrack as an additional service - despite all the air taxes and fees we pay.

I think this should work the other way - we pay a fixed airport tax - inbound and outbound - and if we don't get processed promptly we get automatic refunds...

might make air travel pleasant once more...