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Saturday 6 November 2010

Airport security UK and abroad

Jon Worth explains why if he wanted to bomb an airliner he wouldn't pick one leaving a UK airport. Here's an extract:
'I’ve recently taken return flights from the UK to Sharm-el-Sheikh in Egypt (to go diving in Dahab), and my parents have flown to and from Morocco, returning to the UK from Fez.

On the way to Egypt and Morocco we were subject to the normal checks on liquids in our hand luggage, and obliged to bin anything over 100ml, still in response to the 2006 transatlantic bomb plot.

But what about the other way around?

You can take as much liquid as you like (within reason) through security in both Fez and Sharm-el-Sheikh – I took 2 litres of water through, just to test it. Not an explosives check in sight, just a metal detector, and through went my water. Isn’t there something a bit odd about that, as there are some rather unpleasant groups operating in both Egypt and Morocco? If I wanted to bring down an airliner I sure would do it departing from there towards London rather than the other way around.'
Unusually I find myself agreeing with Jon Worth as I too have flown from airports where security is a joke and where people are allowed to carry what they like through as cabin luggage. I have mistakenly taken a penknife through x-ray machines in my hand luggage without being detected. Yet in other foreign airports I have had my hand luggage checked by sniffer dogs, electronic explosive sniffers and thorough hand searches.

1 comment:

  1. But if you fly through Bristol Airport and your clear plastic bag used for carrying your liquids through the security is a few centimeters too big, the jobsworth on the x-ray machine makes sure he reprimands you for using too large a bag as happened to me last Friday.

    ReplyDelete

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