Should Airport Security allow....

robbie_998

you to skip the queue if your flight leaves sooner than others ?

You might only have 20mins to get on the plane but your only joining the queue to get through security to go straight to the door but others may be in the queue with maybe an hour til their flight and they are there just so they can shop, should the person in a real hurry be allowed to skip ?

Yes you should be early for your flight and all that jazz but should you still be allowed ?

Tallon

No, you should be early for your flight.
Thats the reason they ask you to be early, because these things happen hundreds of times a day and people in this country don't deal with pressure well

Nuttzz

No. Why should i bother turning up on time if I can just jump the queue?

Soon everyone would turn up at the last minute and want to go first, how would that work?

pab_lowe

What are you suggesting, that there is a two queues marked "people who have only 20 minutes for their flight" and "selfish baxtards who only show up to shop and not necessarily so that they can be on time for their flight"

People do genuinely turn up late for flight through no fault of their own, happened to me once. I begged my way to the top of the security queue explaining to those ahead of me. Is there a need for anything more than that?

Tallon

pab_lowe wrote: »

People do genuinely turn up late for flight through no fault of their own,

Very true, but, the amount of people who claim this when they just couldnt be arsed to show up early, ruins the option for everyone else.
If airport staff had this a few times a day, I have no reason to think they wouldnt say "ah sure go ahead" but when every tom dick and harry ask they just get pissed off.

I was waiting in line once when some Lady and her fella pushed me out of the way, the guy asked could his wife get on early as they arrived late and she was 2 weeks pregnant. I mean what a load of BS, she was just fat, 2 weeks of pregnancy wouldn't have any sort of affect on a person. But he argued that the had to make sure they had everything organised in case of 'complications' on the plane and that was why he was late

corktina

definate no from me....

Imposter

They should perhaps have a different gate where they can charge people who can't be arsed turning up on time!

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Imposter wrote: »

They should perhaps have a different gate where they can charge people who can't be arsed turning up on time!

At least 1.5 miles from the plane.

Hang on...

I'd say no. Otherwise, everyone would turn up just before their flight and expect to get through. I don't turn up 2 hours early for the fun of it, I do it to make sure I don't miss the flight and don't inconvenience others. There are of course some genuine cases, but most people who arrive late do so because they couldn't be bothered waiting around at the airport, totally misjudged how long it would take them to get there, wanted an extra hour in bed or whatever. These morons then expect special treatment over those who actually arrived in good time. Why should they get it?

Bluetonic

There should be two queues, one for the unorganised idiots and one for the rest of us.

Tallon

I would have said one for the idiots and one for the rest of them

PCPhoto

Tallon wrote: »

Very true, but, the amount of people who claim this when they just couldnt be arsed to show up early, ruins the option for everyone else.
If airport staff had this a few times a day, I have no reason to think they wouldnt say "ah sure go ahead" but when every tom dick and harry ask they just get pissed off.

I was waiting in line once when some Lady and her fella pushed me out of the way, the guy asked could his wife get on early as they arrived late and she was 2 weeks pregnant. I mean what a load of BS, she was just fat, 2 weeks of pregnancy wouldn't have any sort of affect on a person. But he argued that the had to make sure they had everything organised in case of 'complications' on the plane and that was why he was late

you woudnt even know after 2 weeks he probably meant 2 months....and even at that they should have been sent to the back of the queue ...... and miss their flight due to being idiots.
* its possible that they could have had a history or problems with previous pregnancies and were being ultra careful....but I doubt it....they probably ordered drinks as soon as they sat down on the plane and laughed at how they got through security so fast.


but back on topic .... NO...if someone is late they will learn not to be late next time (I was late for a flight - gate closed by 10mins.....my reason .... there was a car crash on the M50 and I got caught in traffic and then had take a diversion ....so missed the flight - but the happy people (ryanair).... gladly offered me a flight to a neighbouring country...so I could be nearer my destination (at a fee of course).....which I paid and spent the next 10hours travelling to ge to my destination).

Bluetonic

Tallon wrote: »

I would have said one for the idiots and one for the rest of them

All joking aside a system whereby there is one queue for people with liquids and one for people without might work.

markpb

If such a system was used, it would encourage people to turn up late. Then we'd need three queues: early people, late people and really late people. And then there's be even less reason to turn up early...

anotherlostie

Actually I think I would be in favour of the idea of a fast track queue where you could pay, say €20, to bypass the larger queue. This would make DAA more money, and would allow people who wanted to arrive just on time to get through (I prefer to give myself lots of time at the airport).

Of course there would still be the possibility of loads of people flooding the priority queue, slowing down throughput, so maybe that would make it a non runner. You'd be pretty irate if you paid the money and still missed your flight.

murphaph

anotherlostie wrote: »

Actually I think I would be in favour of the idea of a fast track queue where you could pay, say €20, to bypass the larger queue. This would make DAA more money, and would allow people who wanted to arrive just on time to get through (I prefer to give myself lots of time at the airport).

Of course there would still be the possibility of loads of people flooding the priority queue, slowing down throughput, so maybe that would make it a non runner. You'd be pretty irate if you paid the money and still missed your flight.

DAA prefers to get you airside asap for as long as possible to get you shopping. The retailers would kick up a fuss about any fast track system

antoinolachtnai

The security gates problem is a bit more complicated than people simply turning up too late.

Part of the problem seems to be people turning up too early. They are going through at the peak time around 7.30 or 8 even though their flights won't board until after 9.30 or 10.

They are obviously doing this because they have been advised to do so, and because they are fearful that they will get stuck in the queue. The sheer length of the queue also encourages people to join it sooner.

So to resolve this problem it isn't enough just to get people to turn up earlier. You have to get them to show up at a rate that is fast enough to get them to the planes with time to spare, but slow enough to not overwhelm the security and cause long queues.

There are lots of ways of doing this. The way DAA does it seems to be oriented around getting as many people as possible to spend as much time as possible in their shopping centre.

MysticalSoul

For the most part I say no. If you are late for reasons that are outside of your control yes, but if you did not leave your home etc on time, and ignored the minimum check in time, tough.

On the other hand, I was flying from San Francisco to Cork once, via London. That particular year there were works being carried out at San Fran airport, and also lost time in the air, when I arrived in London, I had 10 mins to check in for the connection flight, and as I was like a headless chicken very conscious of time, I ended up going the wrong way, and having to go through security again, so I just pleaded with a few people ahead of me, who let me through. A situation re delays, even though allowing time for connecting flights (that flight was over 2 hours late arriving into London), would be the exception to the rule.

patrickmooney

I would say yes. I travel via plane a great deal, and personally, would have no issue, as a customer, letting another past me in a queue at security if they risked missing a flight. I don't need to know why they are late, traffic, connections etc. A flight is a flight, I have missed flights before due to sudden train/tube strikes and there is nothing worse then running to catch a flight.

SeanW

Imposter wrote: »

They should perhaps have a different gate where they can charge people who can't be arsed turning up on time!

I agree with this idea - turn up on time, wait in the queue and go through free.

Turn up late, there's a second queue, that has a much shorter queue time (i.e. less than 5 minutes) but a €40 charge to use it ...

mmafan81

dont know bout dublin r other a/ports but in cork,airport security is done by a contract company not part of caa,so money 4 second Q would b an issue between d 2 and would also mean hiring and training more staff 2 man this 'idiot Q' which is not going 2 happen when like every other company their tryin 2 get rid of staff

mickoneill30

I was flying with Air France a few weeks ago. I was about an hour before boarding but the security queue was a nightmare. The check in desk just stamped my boarding pass and told me to use the domestic / business queue (I wasn't travelling business). It seemed like common sense to me to let the check in staff decide. If your customer is on time but might miss or delay the flight then speed up your customer.

On the other hand if there were two queues like people mentioned above people would always just use the quicker queue. For example, how many times have you been in the 10 items or less queue with a bottle of milk standing behind some muppet with a trolley. People can't even read the signs in the security queues telling them what items to take out of their bags. If you have two queues with two criteria their brains might explode.

Davidth88

I am what you might describe as a frequent flyer.

I get really fed up watching people in the security queues , they stand like lemons for the 30-40 mins . Then when they get to the front of the queue they spend 1-2 mins , getting the stuff out the bags, taking their belt off , taking their laptop out ( after being asked ) etc etc.

Now each person does not take that long , maybe 1 min , however multiply that up by the number of people and it's easy to see why queues build up.

I fully understand that security is stressful , I get stressed going through there and I know exactly what to do , and I can't remember the last time I was stopped because I had something I shouldn't ( or rather I can they searched my bag recently because they didn't like my keyring , which was jut a small lump of metal , not sharp or anything ).

To the OP, no. If people were organised , arrived on time , and without the stuff they shouldn't have in their carry on then they won't miss their flights.

I notice more and more airports ( for example CDG / AMS ) are moving away from the central security area and to gate security areas. This seems to work better , and it means that people ( incl MOL ) can't blame the security for people missing their flights .

markpb

Davidth88 wrote: »

I get really fed up watching people in the security queues , they stand like lemons for the 30-40 mins . Then when they get to the front of the queue they spend 1-2 mins , getting the stuff out the bags, taking their belt off , taking their laptop out ( after being asked ) etc etc.

Orlando International have several queues approaching security - one for regular travellers who know the drill, one for normal people, one for people who require assistance and know in advance (i.e. wheelchairs, metal implants, etc) and one for airline staff. It all works well and handles the 35m passengers with ease.

Of course, they probably built their airport properly instead of having a government long finger any expansion plans for a decade forcing them to fudge extra capacity and make a mess of the whole thing.

Davidth88 wrote: »

I notice more and more airports ( for example CDG / AMS ) are moving away from the central security area and to gate security areas. This seems to work better , and it means that people ( incl MOL ) can't blame the security for people missing their flights .

That requires tens or hundreds of scanning machines and an abundance of security staff. I won't argue that it works well (AMS is very handy) but it can't be cheap to operate.

Davidth88

markpb wrote: »

That requires tens or hundreds of scanning machines and an abundance of security staff. I won't argue that it works well (AMS is very handy) but it can't be cheap to operate.

In AMS , I don't know how many extra people it has requires TBH , they only turnup at the gate when boarding is going to start.

mickoneill30

Davidth88 wrote: »

I notice more and more airports ( for example CDG / AMS ) are moving away from the central security area and to gate security areas.

You're right about CDG being distributed but they have to be the worst security in any airport ever. Lots of scanners, lots of staff but only a few scanners in use at any one time or worse, the queue you're in suddenly closes for some random reason and you've to join the end of another one. Or every time I go through they find something in my bag that worries them. I don't know why they bother with X-Ray. I have to empty my bag pretty much any time I go through. I have to go to CDG frequently for work. Every single time I go through security in CDG I'm annoyed by the time I get to the other side (and I'm not a traveller that has problems in any other security gates generally).

Davidth88

mickoneill30 wrote: »

I have to go to CDG frequently for work. Every single time I go through security in CDG I'm annoyed by the time I get to the other side (and I'm not a traveller that has problems in any other security gates generally).

That's possibly CDG , or maybe Paris . I must admit I always find the staff and organisation at CDG terrible . I usually use T1 ( I tend to fly EI ) , it's designed by a bloke on LSD in the 60's . And the organisation it horrible.

It's the only airport where I have had a row with the check in , they tried to make me check in my laptop bag ( just a laptop I was on a day trip ) because it was too heavy .... this is a the same laptop I have used all over the world and never had a problem. When I said fine , Ill check it in if you give me your name and I can quote you if I lose it. She then turned her security badge round and started to ' non comprend ' ......

bk

There is a company in the US who you can subscribe to and therefore go to the head of the security queue in many US airports (separate queue I think). This company has just gone bust, so obviously wasn't very popular.

Interestingly I was in Israel once, security is very tight there, they spent nearly half an hour just rubbing down every surface in my bags for bomb residue before you even check in (so you still have all your luggage) and this was normal procedure for every passenger.

Yet despite this all queues moved very quickly, with no waiting. The whole procedure was made far more pleasant by the fact that most of the security personal seemed to be pleasant Israeli girls about 18 to 21 I assume doing their military service.

Interestingly a security guy told me that if you were regularly traveling to Israel on business, you could get the Israeli company to vouch for you and they wouldn't need to do such a detailed search.

BTW I had a bottle of water with me and other then giving it a quick wipe, they couldn't care less and left me get on the plane with it. I was made dump it in CDG, perfect example of security theater.

Davidth88

Hi,

The reason Israel use young ( usually quite attractive ) women is so people tell them more info than they usually would , in order to be friendly.

( or that's what I have heard anyway )

Mill21

NO! I'm glad to see that there are so many other people on this thread that think the same. I won't say exactly why but I know a lot about this subject. I'm sure you can figure out why.
The reason that so many people turn up with 20 mins or less sometimes is usually because of web checkin. People print off their own boarding cards, bring only hand luggage and turn up with 20mins til their flight. If there is a valid reason (like a checkin queue taking an hour [which I've never heard of happening]) then maybe they would be let through fast track. But for some one who is just too lazy to get there in time then its an absolute no. They are no different to anyone else.
But the people that annoy me the most are the one who don't ask to skip the queue they just do it, when there are hundreds of people waiting in the queue. Nobody wants to wait in the queue for security and a lot of the time there isn't much of a queue but when there is its unavoidable so people like that should just be prepared. If you don't want to miss your flight then its pretty simple:
BE ON TIME!

ardmacha

The DAA receive payments for each plane that uses the airport and they know the time each flight leaves at and how many people are on it. A radical suggestion is that they should simply provide some service and ensure that queues have a maximum length of 5mins or so, ending this debate.