A couple of years ago I had to take a connected flight where one of the stops was in USA. I was never going to leave the airport, yet I had to form in a line while immigration was doing the routine bottleneck check on dozens of travelers, while my flight time was getting dangerously close. We just had to suck it up, any complaining just brought additional delays. The check was fairly automated, I guess they just needed more agents, or less gratuitous revisions.
I had this exact same experience with LHR (London Heathrow). I was never even trying to leave the airport, just make a connecting flight.
Not only did they decide that having a single security lane open was sufficient, but they also (effectively) only let one person unload their bag into the trays at a time, for a max bus throughput of 1 person at a time. If you left anything in it - and I mean anything[0] - they pulled your bag and tray to the side, and you had to wait for one of two agents to inspect it. The wait time for that was about 10-15 minutes. At no point did anybody have any sense of urgency whatsoever with their work, despite all of us being there to make connecting flights. They shuffled back and forth between the body scanner, X-ray machine, and the break area, chatting with each other. I was seventh in line, and in all, the entire process took literally 30 minutes (I timed it).
I was floored, because I've traveled around the world and never seen anything this bad. Even Heathrow security has never been that bad for me when taking off from London. There was an agent from our departing flight there to escort us, because we were holding the whole flight up. I asked her if this was typical or not, and she just rolled her eyes and laughed, "yeah, this is how it usually is".
[0] One guy next to me had his back selected because he had left his eyeglasses inside his bag, in a plastic (not metal) case.
It is one of the best airports I have ever seen.
Is this for real? Sucks, but I can imagine most fellow passengers pick up the slack... at least I've always helped others (and vice-versa) in the US.
For the US airports where TSA directly provides airport security, this is probably mission-related. The TSA checkpoint’s mission is to make sure unauthorized people and objects don't get into the sterile section of the airport. Additional protocols to prevent theft are off mission, so resources aren't going to be devoted to identifying, establishing, and operating them.
I can literally take a few people’s suitcases circling around before they spot them, and leave!
Schiphol does it about equally dumb where the baggage carousel is past the last security check and 10 meters from the public spaces. It would be trivial to take one or more bags that aren't yours and walk out.
1) “Meet your baggage” a simple system that can be bolted on to most existing processes that lets you know which airport your luggage is at, where it is in the process, and when your luggage is coming out and on what carousel. So you can be standing by the chute expecting it.
2) A system for seats to recline starting from the back, letting people switch seats and pay $ and go to sleep in a comfortable reclining position, which I find is really crucial for a long flight and people are willing to pay for.
If you’re interested and have some connections with the airline industry email me at greg+airline the at symbol qbix.com
This doesn't always work. Many times the luggage is at the carousel quicker than you are.
As for '2', airlines don't like people switching seats, before take-off they use the 'weight and balance' argument, and after take-off because it will slow things down tremendously when de-planing to sort out where everybody's carry on luggage is.
1) Luggage doesn’t come out until your phone indicates that you’re ready or went through a checkpoint. This way you can coordinate the variable time you have (eg detained or in a long line) with the baggage before it is placed on the chute. The throwers simply sort the luggage by having cleared to go down the chute, as you move through the process. They can also see on a screen for each luggage where each person is in the process. Usually it’s far easier to delay luggage than expedite it.
2) People are woken up before descent begins and the seatbelt sign is turned on. For the vast majority of flights, this can be predicted in advance. Switching happens in an orderly fashion, and people end up near their baggage before the flight ends. They actually can even pay per minute for naps in the back, requesting a sleeper seat is like requesting a flight attendant, except it lights up the request for the next seats in the back, and whoever accepts your offer can even get a cut of the $. Typically though the airlines would sell the back seats for cheaper (because you have to move) and charge far more for the people who want to sleep on the flight. Often a good relaxed sleep is worth far more and is an impulse buy on the plane.
Anyway, good luck with your patents, I hope it works out for you.
Thanks!!
Which is why airlines sell properly reclinable seats for $8,000 a pop on long flights. It's called Business Class.
And many will pay while on the plane!
While others can pay less by agreeing to give up their seat to someone who wants to sleep.
It's part of the reason.
Other parts include:
(1) Even with “positive bag matching” in place which should in theory prevent this, bags end up going elsewhere or elsewhen.
(2) Theft by airport and security services employees between check-in and delivery to the carousel.
At SFO they claimed they never received my rifle case. 15 minutes later I found it circling on a luggage carousel.
The deterrent is that there are a large number of security cameras covering that space, and that continues out to parking structures, so it's a very high risk crime and not reasonably repeatable.
I had to wait until every single person was off the plane and had exited with their bags, and there was only one bag left, and me. Then they believed the bag was mine and let me take it.
All of this made me slightly anxious, since I don't speak Tajik, but it worked out, I guess.
If you think about it, there's a pretty serious security issue there. Someone could walk into an airport with a bomb in a bag, toss it on the baggage carousel while nobody is paying attention, and then walk out. It wouldn't get noticed by security looking for unattended baggage because it's expected for there to be unattended baggage there.
Side note for the unaware: Singapore’s airport has screening at each and every gate instead of a joint one right after passport control.
The screening at the gate is annoying IMO, because you can't buy a drink to take on the plane. It's my only complaint about Changi.
That other airports don't implement this system continues to astonish me.