Like everyone else I have been concerned about what would, or wouldn't, be
allowed into the cabin.
The severity of checks vary from airport to airport and, even the most exacting ones tend to be "spotty"... On small planes, it doesn't seem to be worth while to check everyone; on large ones, it's not really feasible... Even in the US we've read what happened when -- prompted by the code-orange "upgrade" of our security alert -- the UK security started checking *every* passenger on a particular flight to DC (supposedly on a "tip")... The delays were 3-4 hrs long, and that's on top of the current request that one shows up 2 hrs before flight time. Showing up *6* hrs before flight time, especially for morning flights, doesn't strike me as something likely to happen... :) People fly because of *convenience* and the time saving; when that disappears, they'll be disinclined to do it
In my case I wondered about a sewing needle, even the bluntest one I could obtain. Now I wonder why, given a Sudanese passenger flying from Washington, DC to Dubai via London Heathrow was found by security staff at Heathrow to have travelled with live ammunition on his person.
One wonders just when he planned to use the stuff -- between Heathrow and Dubai? Or was it a way of showing that the airport security had holes in it, which needed to be "plugged"? Just recently, a Polish journalist strolled out of the Warsaw airport, onto the tarmac, and cosied up to a long-distance airplane, almost ready to take off and full of passengers. With a big camera-case too (which could have held a couple of kilos of explosives). He never went through any security check-points, and nobody thought to stop him... But they sure as sure have plugged *that* option now... :)
---- Tamara P Duvall Lexington, Virginia, USA Formerly of Warsaw, Poland http://lorien.emufarm.org/~tpd/
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