Subject: [CR]Bag check (Ian Briggs - Luton)

(Example: Production Builders:LeJeune)

From: <LeMansGTMAN@aol.com>
Date: Thu, 25 Dec 2003 14:02:32 EST
Subject: Subject: [CR]Bag check (Ian Briggs - Luton)
To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org


Dear All,

This is perhaps the least best day for me to respond to a topic in anything less than my usual tongue in cheek manner. But I cannot remain silent...

I DO try to see the funny side of everything - but this something that will always sets my nerves on edge and send the corners of my mouth downwards in a moment...

Perhaps I should explain that I work at an Airport (I am the Press Secretary in fact) and this topic of 'sharps' is one that is close to my heart - as I am regularly having to explain the situation to the media and even passengers whose memories seem to be appallingly short.

Please do remember 9/11...

Two days afterward the Twin Towers / Pennsylvania and Washington (at 15.00 hrs GMT in fact) the DfT (Department for Transport) - who are the sanctioning body for all Airport / Aviation Security in the UK required that from that moment onwards a long prescribed list of items (penknives, nail scissors, files, workmans' tools, sporting bats etc., etc.,) could no longer be permitted on board as (or in) hand baggage. Also excluded was (is) any item that could reasonably regarded as having a use as a WEAPON of some kind... Note the 'weapon' - we are not talking here about a McGyver-clone dismantling aircraft bulkheads or interfering with aircraft systems... though that is also a consideration.

I need say no more - and cannot of course speak for the Security in other countries - including the US.

However suffice it to say that all the above items CAN be carried packed in hold baggage without any restriction, because the passenger can't get to them in flight - so I don't see what the problem is.

There is of course a list of obvious things - like guns*, explosives (!) gas canisters blah, blah, blah are of course excluded from passenger flights as both hand or hold baggage in all circumstances.

*Though even these can be carried after a complicated documentation process has been completed and the item handed over to the Captain - or his appointed rep' on the aircraft.

All this applies as described in the UK only - though other European countries have very similar regulations.

Simple rule applies for everywhere I think - pack only essential items in hand baggage and on your person and certainly no sharps or anything that could be construed as being able to be used as a weapon, and you'll be OK.

Final point - here at Luton we never confiscate these items. We ask passengers to surrender them voluntarily (but if they don't, they can't fly of course) and we also offer them a couple of options that permit them to either send the item home to themselves or arrange for them to be packed in hold baggage.

Hope this helps everyone.

End of lecture - back to Smelly Crimbo mode now!

Ian Briggs - Luton UK..... (mild and wet - a bit like me really)