At 05:34 PM 10/24/2002 +0100, Chrisy Luke wrote:
That said, in my limited experience (and it may entirely be superficial) countries with Government run airport security tend to be more thorough - and that means Govt. employed people doing the job, not some 2-bit company they found down the road that gave the "best value for money" - we don't want cheap, we want security, without finger-pointing when it screws up.
The London airport that found and confiscated your leatherman tool is run by a publicly traded company, BAA Plc (http://www.baa.co.uk), not the government, as are pretty much all of the airports in the UK. There are local, UK and European airline security regulations, but the security people are paid for, employed by and answer to the airport company, not the government. BAA even sells airport security consulting services. Poor security is bad for business if you're an airport. Cheers, Mathew