Saturday, December 26, 2009

Airport security, you are kidding, right?

I have not posted anything in a while because I was sometimes not inspired to write anything, sometimes too busy or sometimes just on holiday. My latest holidays were in Spain and while going trough airport security here in Charleroi Airport (a.k.a Brussels South) I declined the metal detector alarm. I was absolutely sure that I had removed any of the non-permitted objects and had no clue what declined the alarm.

The classic procedure then started ... please step through Sir. The security staff member asked me if I had anything on me that could have triggered the alarm. I replied no and than I assumed the position for a check. The guy did it reasonably correct but he forgot to check the lower part of the abdomen. I know most people would not be comfortable about this.

Since the procedure had no result, a hand detector was the next procedure. Funny because the only thing it found was the metal parts that every jeans has so with some logic everybody wearing jeans would have triggered the alarm. This was not the case so in my mind that was not what triggered it but I was cleared and off to catch my flight.

When I had my flight home I was dressed exactly the same way but I made sure that my clothes did absolutely not have any metal parts. You guess it ... I triggered the alarm again :). Yes I was very happy because I was consistent.

The guy started his search, he didn't find anything so I had to put each foot in some kind of sniffer machine (too bad I forgot to look at the brand) . When I got cleared it suddenly became clear to me the only thing I had on me and was made of metal is the frame of my glasses.

If I was really up to no good I would not have made such a 'mistake' but it is clear to me that those security people have no procedure in place for the cases that don't fit the procedure and actually I personally think that is scary.