John
25th January 2010, 06:45
As some of you may know, I traveled to Las Vegas, USA on Sunday the 17th of January 2010 and flew back to Greece on the 22nd-23rd. Since there is no direct flight between Greece and Las Vegas, I had to fly with at least one stop-over, which was in London Heathrow. I flew British Airways, which had the cheapest fair the day I booked my flights. This gave me the opportunity to try first hand, the security measures which are in effect in both European and American airports.
Overall, I could summarize my experience as "nothing new".
Starting from Greece, there was the normal check in Athens airport. Nothing unusual, nothing added. Scanning of carry-on bags, body scanning through metal detectors etc. Nothing unusual.
From Heathrow to Las Vegas, we had gone through the same traditional security check upon entering the secure area of the airport. There was one additional security check, just before entering the gate to our flight. It included a carry-on bags hand-search, by a very friendly English gentleman, which I wouldn't classify as "severe". He failed to spot my key ring, which was in a relatively not obvious pocket of my backpack, so I showed it to him. From his answer, I understood that this check was more of a "personality check" than anything else. This was the only additional check that I noticed during my flights towards US and didn't last more than 5 minutes.
On the way back, the checks at the McCarran airport in Las Vegas were the same as I've gone through in the past when departing from US airports. The only difference perhaps was that in McCarran there was one of the new body x-ray machines (or at least that's what I figured it was), which was used randomly for some passengers, before switching to the standard metal detector arcade. Nothing else, nothing extra, nothing strange.
The same was true for the trip from Heathrow to Athens, no additional security checks or anything similar.
So, in a nutshell, I didn't see the additional delays that the media are reporting, due to the increased security measures. I didn't see any additional security measure, except the carry-on luggage check on the flight to US, but as I said, that didn't last long at all. Actually, I noticed that even the 100ml fluids rule was not very strictly enforced, since a small bottle of lens cleaning fluid which was in my backpack during all the flights, never caused any issue with the checking agents. Maybe the fact that it was next to a blower brush told them it was not a risk? Who knows.
Mind you, during all the flights, I was carrying at least one backpack (two on my way back) with at least one large camera (two on the way back), three lenses (four on the way back), motor drives, a large flash unit, a notebook, an assortment of chargers (for the notebook and two cell phones), card readers and various cables required to connect everything together. By all means not an easy passenger to check, but there was never any problem.
In contrast, last year, when I was flying in US (from Newark to North Carolina) and from US (NY JFK) to Athens, I was searched twice with special spectrometer devices. TSA agents were swapping the various items I had on my carry-on luggage with some special patches, which were then fed to a machine which I assume was looking for residues of explosives or whatever. I didn't mind those checks at all, but they were very time-consuming and I was really anxious seeing a clumsy TSA agent handling my cameras and lenses. At least once she managed to drop a lens, but thank God, it just dropped a few inches inside my padded case, so no harm done. But you can understand how good I felt seeing her going through her tasks on my precious babies.
Why do the media insist on telling us about extreme security measures and large delays? I do not know, I guess they have to find something to cover their air time and security is always a good attraction, the media like to scare the public, either by providing real info or rumors. Ken Rockwell has another interesting explanation, but I am not ready to buy into it. See his site at kenrockwell.com.
Overall, I could summarize my experience as "nothing new".
Starting from Greece, there was the normal check in Athens airport. Nothing unusual, nothing added. Scanning of carry-on bags, body scanning through metal detectors etc. Nothing unusual.
From Heathrow to Las Vegas, we had gone through the same traditional security check upon entering the secure area of the airport. There was one additional security check, just before entering the gate to our flight. It included a carry-on bags hand-search, by a very friendly English gentleman, which I wouldn't classify as "severe". He failed to spot my key ring, which was in a relatively not obvious pocket of my backpack, so I showed it to him. From his answer, I understood that this check was more of a "personality check" than anything else. This was the only additional check that I noticed during my flights towards US and didn't last more than 5 minutes.
On the way back, the checks at the McCarran airport in Las Vegas were the same as I've gone through in the past when departing from US airports. The only difference perhaps was that in McCarran there was one of the new body x-ray machines (or at least that's what I figured it was), which was used randomly for some passengers, before switching to the standard metal detector arcade. Nothing else, nothing extra, nothing strange.
The same was true for the trip from Heathrow to Athens, no additional security checks or anything similar.
So, in a nutshell, I didn't see the additional delays that the media are reporting, due to the increased security measures. I didn't see any additional security measure, except the carry-on luggage check on the flight to US, but as I said, that didn't last long at all. Actually, I noticed that even the 100ml fluids rule was not very strictly enforced, since a small bottle of lens cleaning fluid which was in my backpack during all the flights, never caused any issue with the checking agents. Maybe the fact that it was next to a blower brush told them it was not a risk? Who knows.
Mind you, during all the flights, I was carrying at least one backpack (two on my way back) with at least one large camera (two on the way back), three lenses (four on the way back), motor drives, a large flash unit, a notebook, an assortment of chargers (for the notebook and two cell phones), card readers and various cables required to connect everything together. By all means not an easy passenger to check, but there was never any problem.
In contrast, last year, when I was flying in US (from Newark to North Carolina) and from US (NY JFK) to Athens, I was searched twice with special spectrometer devices. TSA agents were swapping the various items I had on my carry-on luggage with some special patches, which were then fed to a machine which I assume was looking for residues of explosives or whatever. I didn't mind those checks at all, but they were very time-consuming and I was really anxious seeing a clumsy TSA agent handling my cameras and lenses. At least once she managed to drop a lens, but thank God, it just dropped a few inches inside my padded case, so no harm done. But you can understand how good I felt seeing her going through her tasks on my precious babies.
Why do the media insist on telling us about extreme security measures and large delays? I do not know, I guess they have to find something to cover their air time and security is always a good attraction, the media like to scare the public, either by providing real info or rumors. Ken Rockwell has another interesting explanation, but I am not ready to buy into it. See his site at kenrockwell.com.