Security, Immigration & Border Control

[News Guru]

Airport queues getting longer - because thousands of travellers breach hand luggage liquid rules every day

Manchester Airport says that 4,150 passengers are trying to breach liquid security rules EVERY DAY - creating longer queues.

Of the 400,000 trays of passengers’ hand luggage belongings processed a day, 5,000 are rejected - with 83 per cent of those refused because they contain liquids over 100ml in size, such as large bottles of shampoo and perfume.

Read more: http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/ ... ds-7550742

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Of the 400,000 trays of passengers’ hand luggage belongings processed a day, 5,000 are rejected - with 83 per cent of those refused because they contain liquids over 100ml in size, such as large bottles of shampoo and perfume.

400,000 trays each day equates to around 12 million each month. Can that be right? Where do they get the staff to process nearly half a million trays a day? That's nearly 300 hundred a minute if the airport was open 24 hours a day. Am I missing something here?

 

[BSL-2km]

Of the 400,000 trays of passengers’ hand luggage belongings processed a day, 5,000 are rejected - with 83 per cent of those refused because they contain liquids over 100ml in size, such as large bottles of shampoo and perfume.

400,000 trays each day equates to around 12 million each month. Can that be right? Where do they get the staff to process nearly half a million trays a day? That's nearly 300 hundred a minute if the airport was open 24 hours a day. Am I missing something here?

And there you have it............

follow the evidence and where does it lead you ? :crazy:

There is no threat to world aviation from any of these fictitious groups :search: , these are all systems of control and manipulation.

It is all an illusion

“The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.”

― Frank Zappa

:friends: :good:

 

[User0001]

The figure likely comes from the fact some travellers use 2-3 trays each.

For example, when I went to FUE last month, the made me take 1 tray for my bag, 1 for my laptop and then a 3rd for my belt, liquids and shoes.

The couple in front took up 7 trays, I kid you not!

 

[Aviador]

That's absolutely true.

Department for Transport rules stipulate electrical items such as lap-tops, ipads and liquid items should be screened separately from your hand luggage. So in some cases people require several trays for all their electrical items and liquids. It's no wonder passing through airport security is the bane of air travel these days.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

I take the point about passengers using several trays at times but if 400,000 trays are handled each day it equates to over ten trays for every passenger in the busiest months at MAN.

Example August 2013 - CAA stats say that 2,364,000 passengers passed through the airport that month. If we assume that half are outbound and therefore the ones who will use the trays the the figure is 1,182,000 per month or just over 38,000 per day.

400,000 trays for 38,000 passengers is just over 10.5 trays per passenger.

Is it physically possible for an airport, even one of MAN's size, to handle 400,000 trays per day which is nearly 300 trays per minute? This figure is based on an even spread throughout 24 hours. In reality I doubt that many will check in say between midnight and 4am which means that at peak times the figure would be over 300 trays per minute.

If it is possible to handle so many trays in this period of time it must test the concentration, vigilance and staying power of the security operatives to a remarkable degree even if they are switched from task to task in fairly short order.

I wonder whether the figure should actually be around 40,000 which would seem to make more sense, although it might not cater sufficiently for those who use more than one tray.

If the 400,000 figure is correct it certainly puts into perspective the constant pressure on security staff. Maybe there is some small excuse then for the rudeness and hectoring that seem to surface regularly when airport security staff (any airport) are discussed by passengers. My experience is generally favourable; I treat them courteously and most respond in the same way. There are always exceptions but that's true of any occupation.

 

[Aviador]

I didn't work out the maths on that figure before my last post. Ten trays per passenger does seem excessive. The average passenger will have one main carry on piece of hand luggage; one smaller piece, plus a lap top or ipad and a small bag of liquids. Depending on the airport and it's equipment a passenger may be asked to remove their shoes as well. Some business passengers often carry multiple computer devices and these days even children as young as three are seen with ipads and other tablet devices. Rules stipulate these larger items and liquids are placed separately to give the scanner operator the best chance of seeing any restricted or prohibited articles. So basically we're looking at between four and seven pieces of hand luggage per person. The airport might be including staff in it's figures. Some staff will make several trips between landside and airside every shift and the same rules will apply to them.

 

[Seasider]

I didn't work out the maths on that figure before my last post. Ten trays per passenger does seem excessive. The average passenger will have one main carry on piece of hand luggage; one smaller piece, plus a lap top or ipad and a small bag of liquids. Depending on the airport and it's equipment a passenger may be asked to remove their shoes as well. Some business passengers often carry multiple computer devices and these days even children as young as three are seen with ipads and other tablet devices. Rules stipulate these larger items and liquids are placed separately to give the scanner operator the best chance of seeing any restricted or prohibited articles. So basically we're looking at between four and seven pieces of hand luggage per person. The airport might be including staff in it's figures. Some staff will make several trips between landside and airside every shift and the same rules will apply to them.

What happened to the ruling of one piece of hand luggage per passenger? Quoting my own experience the most trays I have ever used is 3. Usually 2 - one for the laptop and one for shoes, belt, liquids. For holidaymakers who have hold baggage, there should be no need for liquids so should be no more than two.
I am with TLY on this one, 10.5 trays is far too excessive for any passenger, let alone everyone.
Do you think the airport is giving an exagerated figure to prove a point ie queues at security?

 

[Aviador]

I agree, it seems an exaggerated figure. The airport could also be including the re-screening of baggage after the initial scan. If a bag is screened and searched it will likely require re-screening for a second, even a third time but even then the figure quoted seems on the high side.

 

[User0001]

For holidaymakers who have hold baggage, there should be no need for liquids so should be no more than two.

What about medication for potentially a 10 hour flight (MAN does have a lot of long haul after all), baby milk or maybe a dash of perfume/aftershave so you don't stink of plane (it can be quite a potent smell)?

 

[Aviador]

Fighter jet scrambled to escort Qatar Airways plane into Manchester airport.

Qatar Airways flight QR23 A330-300 from Doha to Manchester airport has landed safely after reports of a suspect package on-board the aircraft. The aircraft was escorted into the airport by RAF Typhoon aircraft. A male has been arrested in connection with the incident.

 

[BSL-2km]

Nonsense of the highest order.
Whether the incident happened or not is irrelevant, the media coverage is all that matters, and the constant reminder of the threat.

Next they will tell us that people are wearing exploding pants and have IEDs in their shoes... :bomb:

Wait a minute.......................

 

[Aviador]

BOMB SUSPECT ALLOWED TO FLY
Plane pipe bomb suspect was allowed to fly days after ‘device found in luggage at UK airport’

Nadeem Muhammed is charged with possessing an improvised explosive device

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2859352/plane-pipe-bomb-suspect-nadeem-muhammed-manchester-airport/

 

[ethanegcc]

A ban has been imposed by the British government banning electronic on-board devices from certain countries:
The ban been put in place means all electronic goods such as Laptops, tablets and DVD players will no longer be allowed to be carried in the cabin as part of you hand luggage on flights from Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia & Saudi Arabia. Thus meaning these flights items will now all have to be placed in your hold luggage and then stored in the aircraft holds. This does differ to the USA's new ban which specifies originating cities, and includes Abu Dhabi and Dubai.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-39343971

For Manchester, this will affect quite a few flights including the resuming flights to Sharm-el-Sheikh, Riyadh, Jeddah, Antalya, Istanbul, Dalaman, Bodrum and Izmir.

 

[Philbky]

I wonder if anyone on here can comment from knowledge on the following. I regularly travel to the UK, Europe and the USA and I have a camera bag which is small enough to fit on Ryanair and commuter overheads as cabin baggage and all up weighs 7 kgs.

It contains 3 bodies, three lenses, six batteries, two chargers and leads, a cleaning cloth, puffer brush and an external flash. In 2014 I took it on a 15 sector trip around the world and last autumn I did a similar trip. I have never had any trouble with its contents in security. The most I have been delayed is for a minute or so if, after x-ray I've been asked to unzip it.

Last autumn my itinerary meant the bag was x-rayed at Shannon, Heathrow, Los Angeles, Kahului, Kona, Honolulu, Auckland, Adelaide, Singapore and Hong Kong. Every time the bag went through x-ray without comment. The journey back to Ireland was broken in the UK so my wife could visit her mother in Stockport. I booked a Ryanair flight back to Dublin which meant we had to use the hell hole which is T3 in the late afternoon.

As it was November, I had a coat. My tablet, shoes and belt, coins and keys had to be removed so I ended up with a box for my belt, coins, keys and shoes, one for my coat with the tablet out of its case on the top and one for my camera bag. One of the agents told me to get another box just for the tablet. Prior to this on the trip the tablet had always gone through with other items. I was now faced with keeping an eye on four boxes.

Three of the boxes came through the machine and were delivered back. The box containing the camera bag was shunted onto another line. When I enquired what was going on I was told it needed "special inspection". After waiting 30 minutes with no sign of the bag getting much closer to inspection and with a large number of people in a similar situation, I enquired why the bag needed special attention. I was told that I should have emptied the bag. Lenses brush, cloth, leads, chargers and flash in one tray, bodies in another, bag on its own. When I pointed out that it would have meant me trying to fill seven trays and keep an eye on them all, some of which would have contained equipment with a value in four figures I was met with a shrug of the shoulders. When I told the supervisor how the bag had been treated elsewhere on the trip, I was told "this is Manchester and because our security is so good we have never had an incident".

Eventually my bag was opened and the lenses were lifted out, the rest was given a cursory glance and we made the gate as the flight started to board.

In the 1990s I owned a company which devised and ran aviation conferences. Passenger and cargo security was one area in which we specialised and I had speakers and sponsorship from the leading suppliers of scanning equipment as well as involvement from governments, IATA and ICAO and many airports. At the time I was well versed in what x-ray and other scanning devices could and could not achieve.

Time has moved on and the capabilities of the equipment has vasty improved. Is it that, as I suspect, the equipment in T3 is past its best and until the redevelopment takes place, a large number of bags have to be hand searched. I would estimate that there were 30 bags ahead of mine and a growing line behind.

I emailed the airport on returning home but did not receive a reply. Can anyone shed light on why T3 security is different from the rest of the world, particularly the very security conscious Heathrow, USA, Germany, Australia and Singapore where I have never had a problem?

 

[Aviador]

I wonder if anyone on here can comment from knowledge on the following. I regularly travel to the UK, Europe and the USA and I have a camera bag which is small enough to fit on Ryanair and commuter overheads as cabin baggage and all up weighs 7 kgs.

It contains 3 bodies, three lenses, six batteries, two chargers and leads, a cleaning cloth, puffer brush and an external flash. In 2014 I took it on a 15 sector trip around the world and last autumn I did a similar trip. I have never had any trouble with its contents in security. The most I have been delayed is for a minute or so if, after x-ray I've been asked to unzip it.

Last autumn my itinerary meant the bag was x-rayed at Shannon, Heathrow, Los Angeles, Kahului, Kona, Honolulu, Auckland, Adelaide, Singapore and Hong Kong. Every time the bag went through x-ray without comment. The journey back to Ireland was broken in the UK so my wife could visit her mother in Stockport. I booked a Ryanair flight back to Dublin which meant we had to use the hell hole which is T3 in the late afternoon.

As it was November, I had a coat. My tablet, shoes and belt, coins and keys had to be removed so I ended up with a box for my belt, coins, keys and shoes, one for my coat with the tablet out of its case on the top and one for my camera bag. One of the agents told me to get another box just for the tablet. Prior to this on the trip the tablet had always gone through with other items. I was now faced with keeping an eye on four boxes.

Three of the boxes came through the machine and were delivered back. The box containing the camera bag was shunted onto another line. When I enquired what was going on I was told it needed "special inspection". After waiting 30 minutes with no sign of the bag getting much closer to inspection and with a large number of people in a similar situation, I enquired why the bag needed special attention. I was told that I should have emptied the bag. Lenses brush, cloth, leads, chargers and flash in one tray, bodies in another, bag on its own. When I pointed out that it would have meant me trying to fill seven trays and keep an eye on them all, some of which would have contained equipment with a value in four figures I was met with a shrug of the shoulders. When I told the supervisor how the bag had been treated elsewhere on the trip, I was told "this is Manchester and because our security is so good we have never had an incident".

Eventually my bag was opened and the lenses were lifted out, the rest was given a cursory glance and we made the gate as the flight started to board.

In the 1990s I owned a company which devised and ran aviation conferences. Passenger and cargo security was one area in which we specialised and I had speakers and sponsorship from the leading suppliers of scanning equipment as well as involvement from governments, IATA and ICAO and many airports. At the time I was well versed in what x-ray and other scanning devices could and could not achieve.

Time has moved on and the capabilities of the equipment has vasty improved. Is it that, as I suspect, the equipment in T3 is past its best and until the redevelopment takes place, a large number of bags have to be hand searched. I would estimate that there were 30 bags ahead of mine and a growing line behind.

I emailed the airport on returning home but did not receive a reply. Can anyone shed light on why T3 security is different from the rest of the world, particularly the very security conscious Heathrow, USA, Germany, Australia and Singapore where I have never had a problem?

A photographers bag containing numerous lenses and other photography equipment is difficult for x-rays to penitrate. If the scanner operator doesn't have a good enough view ie. If the image he sees is opaque he will reject the bag for searching at such point the items are likely to be screened individually. I could be more specific regarding the limitations of scanning equipment. I'm well aware of the capabilities of scanners by Rapiscan, Smiths and L3 Vivid scanners but I don't think a public forum is the right place to discuss this in any greater detail as interesting as it would be.

 

[Philbky]

Having worked with Astrophysics, Rapiscan and Smiths in the 1990s in developing educative papers for presentation to security professionals at various conferences, having seen the capability of the machines both in factory and on site at various airports and knowing the technology has improved in the 18 years since I was last involved, the point has to be what is wrong at Manchester? I regularly fly through Heathrow terminals 2, 3 and 5 without a problem. Regular use of security at Houston Intercontinental never raises any query and the TSA are known to be aggressively hot on security. Australia is also very security conscious. So the question must come down to the efficacy of the equipment or the training of the staff.

I'm a great believer that security must be as tight as possible but there is a difference between tightness and unnecessary delay, poor communication, and an annoyingly vastly different approach to scanning and search.

 

[Aviador]

I have spent more hours driving these machines than some A380 pilots have spent flying.

Technology hasn't advanced to the point that x-ray equipment can penitrate all types of materials and as such I would say the Manchester airport aviation security officers are just following guidelines set by the EU.

If anything I would be questioning the other airports and their procedures dealing with x-ray opaque objects.

 

[Philbky]

If anything I would be questioning the other airports and their procedures dealing with x-ray opaque objects.

On that we have to disagree. Whilst I am totally aware of the limits of x-ray technology, I cannot accept that the major international airports I regularly use and those I use from time to time, are consistently deficient in their use of their x-ray equipment when checking my camera bag. I'm not the only one to have commented on the delays, seeming over use of hand searching and the resulting chaos in T3.

 

[User001]

On that we have to disagree. Whilst I am totally aware of the limits of x-ray technology, I cannot accept that the major international airports I regularly use and those I use from time to time, are consistently deficient in their use of their x-ray equipment when checking my camera bag. I'm not the only one to have commented on the delays, seeming over use of hand searching and the resulting chaos in T3.

Actually I fully agree that it depends on what other airports are willing to 'let through'. Manchester has been rated the most security compliant airport in the UK, and that's because of how it deals with items. It may mean travellers see it as 'inefficient', but would rather have a wait and be compliant than just letting any old crap throug.

To account for the delays and also illustrate my point, conversations I've genuinely heard at T3:

-What do you mean I can't take my angle grinder as hand luggage?

-this is ridiculous, taking my Spanners! Heathrow lets me through with my saw because I'm an engineer FFS (FYI he was a plumber with no airside credentials)

-my screwdriver has never been confiscated before?

-I've been travelling with that (350ml bottle of shampoo) in my hand luggage all month!

-Yes, I know we can't have liquids but this (500ml coke) is a drink. (Seriously).

As for cameras, I've seen some images on the screens while they were being searched at MAN, and after seeing them, if I were an X-ray person and had multiple lenses, I would stop them too and frankly makes me concerned that airports would happily wave that through with no check as without 360 degree screening technology, there is absalutely no way on this planet you could possibly vouch for all the contents of that bag with the level of opaqueness. I'm sorry, but, security is there to 'check' and if you are not going to 'check' then we may as well do away with the lot and just let it be a free for all.

As for the delays and 'chaos' at T3' as someone who travels through there 3-4 times a week on some occasions, I have total sympathy for the guys there.

When you get 8-10 Ryanair flights and 5-6 flybe flights (as well as others) where the passengers don't want to check in luggage and carry their whole world in their bag, as well as the usual language barrier issues, then no wonder it gets busy.

I personally have never had issues there with 'silly stops', I've had waits, sure, but, based on the conversations I've seen, and what people have in their bags, no wonder.