UK should not put up with US airport security – BA chairman

[alp227]

Source: The Guardian

Britain should stop "kowtowing" to US demands over airport security, the chairman of British Airways, Martin Broughton, said yesterday, adding that American airports did not implement some checks on their own internal flights.

He suggested the practice of forcing passengers on US-bound flights to take off their shoes and to have their laptops checked separately in security lines should be dropped, during a conference of UK airport operators in London.

There was no need to "kowtow to the Americans every time they wanted something done", said Broughton. "America does not do internally a lot of the things they demand that we do. We shouldn't stand for that. We should say 'we'll only do things which we consider to be essential and that you Americans also consider essential'."

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/27/airport-security-rules-uk-us

[ixion]

1. The citizens of the US should not tolerate it, either

It would be nice to see sanity returned to airline travel, and the airport in particular.

[Ginto]

2. I agree with this but

It could be turned around and said that US citizens should not put up with UK security cameras.

[Rage for Order]

4. Easy enough to do

Don't go to the UK

[Rage for Order]

5. delete...wrong place

[Politicalboi]

3. I hope someday they will drop taking your shoes off

It's ridiculous. I'm surprised since the underwear bomber they haven't demanded to take our underwear off too.

[Rage for Order]

6. Thank you, UK

It has to begin to end somewhere

[Psephos]

7. TSA = Tyrants Standing Around

Airport "security" is revenge by all its "officers" who went from being pushed-around all their lives to power wielders by dint of badge-and-uniform authority. TSA is a perfect symbol of what's fucked up about governance by force and fiat.

There is no security in the idiotic rituals TSA enforces, only theater of the absurd.

If we tolerate this big lie and monstrous waste, then we deserve it.

[Rage for Order]

8. Reminiscent of...

[Skittles]

9. come on

I fly frequently and most of the TSA folk I run into are just people glad to have a job

[lapsstir]

10. I flew just two weeks ago

I really don't see what the huge inconvenience is and as a frequent flyer, I've always been treated respectfully by TSA. I am NOT saying I agree that all the policies are just okey-dokey, but it's hardly a major imposition to briefly take my shoes off or to limit the amount of fluids in my carry on. I arrived at the airport an hour before my plane took off, and not that long afterwards I arrived 3000 miles away without even having to stop to refuel mid-country. And whatever inconveniences we currently face, it's a million times better than when I had to fly back in the days when they allowed smoking on board.

Of course there have been occasional abuses by TSA agents, just like there always have and always will be by any group of person placed in authority and required to make the kinds of decisions they have to. Ime, the ones I have dealt with have been courteous.

Not too long ago, I saw some moron get confronted by TSA over the rather large folding knife he had (apparently) inadvertently left in his carry on. In this day and age, it's astounding that somebody could be that stupid, but they were actually pretty nice to him considering.

[Blandocyte]

12. Hardly a major imposition, true.

the fact that it's an imposition at all, and that the imposition is basically a legally-required warrantless search, that's okey-dokey? The fact that they want to see under your clothes with an electronic strip search now is cool with you? Ok. I can understand that. Personally, I have a problem with their presuming I'm a terrorist until they see under my clothing or pat me down so that, by submitting to the search during which they find nothing illegal, I can "prove" that I'm not. To me, that doesn't seem like something the FFs had in mind for us.

[FLPanhandle]

13. I'm a frequent flyer too and have never had an issue with TSA folks.

As you say, most are happy to have the job.

If I had to deal with some of the idiots and abuse they take on a daily basis, I wouldn't be a well mannered.

[unhappycamper]

11. Perhaps I'm getting old.

66 years old to be exact.

I served my country for 9 years, nine months and six days from 1963 to 1973.

I did two tours of duty in Vietnam, and had the 'pleasure' of Tet of '68 and the invasion of Cambodia in April 1970.

And I do not like dealing with Frau Bluecher if I wish to take an airplene to somewhere in the United States.