No change to Airport security
Wednesday 30th December 2009, 2:58PM GMT.
There is currently no change to requirements for flights leaving regional airports
SECURITY arrangements at Jersey Airport are not being increased in the wake of the attempt to blow up a transatlantic airliner on Christmas Day.
However, Islanders travelling to America can expect to face long queues at UK airports.
Jersey Airport customer services manager Steve Read said: ‘We have checked with the UK authorities and there is no change to the requirement for flights leaving regional airports heading to major UK airports,’ he said.
But he said that everything was ‘under review’ and if there was a necessity for current advice to change, Jersey would implement any new arrangements.
However, passengers flying to the US can expect to be waiting much longer than normal to pass through security.
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Just as long as they keep an eye out for wayward senators trying to sneak back!
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Whereas the safety of fellow travellers , flight crew etc is of paramount importance , it has to be said the 99.9% of travellers are no threat to terroism, abuse etc to the others but the fact that at Jersey Departures the security staff’s opinion seems to be to the contary.
I admit that this job is very important to all our safety but the inpoliteness , rudeness & arrogance of certain (predomintely male) staff do not help the image of Jersey at all . courtesy costs nothing and a few please & thank-you’s wouldnt go a miss
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Having just returned to the UK from Jersey I noticed again that the check-in staff were lacking in common courtesy.This time the girl asked one security question whilst looking extremely bored and whilst we assumed more questions were to follow she then totally ignored us and fiddled around with some paperwork.I then said “oh,are we finished,can we go?” to which she muttered a yes.This reminded me that each time we have flown out of Jersey over the last two years the behaviour of check-in staff has been similar.They seem completely disinterested in security and are quite plainly bored and lacking in manners.We are ex-locals who return to visit family but what on earth do tourists make of it?
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Get real Jersey
You have summed it up perfectly and I would not limit the impoliteness, rudeness and arrogance to the male staff in fact i would go so far as saying the women are worse. I have travelled with small children and they go out of their way to make it the worst experience ever.
While we were going through a similar family had a very similar experience the difference was they were visitors and on talking to them they were not planning to come back after their treatment. Jersey is the perfect family destination unfortunately the airport doesn’t seem to have grasped this concept.
we have traveled the globe with our children and leaving Jersey is always the worst customs experience, every other country goes out of their way to help you when you are traveling with little ones. Plus the check in staff which are on contract and only represent the airline you are traveling with also make the experience less than pleasant.
I agree with the other posts courtsey does not cost anything and there needs to be a review of the airport. You can still protect the people who pay your wages with a little manners
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Of all the places in the world we visit – Jersey Security ladies and gentlemen are so polite, we left Jersey in October and very apoligetically our wonderful security lady, Angela Hennessy, searched my luggage, no problem she was wonderful and all theguys have always been so good – well done Jersey for your diligence – thank you, you could teach the US and UK a lot of lessons!
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Having spent over a month in the UK and travelled extensively throughout London I can see that Jersey travellers do not fit the demographic of your avedrage terrorist. The UK papers have been talking about targeting those most likely to represent a threat, this is an appropriate use of limited resources. As there are relatively few from this ethic minority in Jersey the threat remains small.
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In view of the Airport manager’s reluctance to increase security, after the attempted terrorist on the plane approaching Detroit, remind me to revisit Jersey by sea, only. Ferries, trains and buses, could also be vulnerable to terrorist attack, but you do have a better chance of survival on the ground or on water.
It is time to get on with installing full body at all airports, even in third world countries.
I for one will be very reluctant to fly any route unless these scanners are installed at all terminal and stop-over airports.
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I find that security staff at Jersey airport, helpful and happy even when on the red eye to London or Isle of Man on a dreary Monday morning I have never had a bad experiance and I travel weekly.
If you are awkward or not helpful yourself then it is their job to question you, not to have an interest in your answers unless you spark their suspicions. The machinery does the rest!
London airports however! Different story!!! Herded live livestock and treated like I was on a hit list…
I just wish it wasn’t so expensive to have breakfast once I was through the Jersey security!
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#5 I totally agree. I was bemused by the negative comments about staff at Jersey Airport as I have found it a very pleasurable experience (relative to other airports) checking in and going through security. Still, there will always be a bad egg, and even a great employee can have an off day.
Only once has anyone been remotely rude or curt with me and since the guy had very little English I can’t see how that reflects on Jersey.
I find it second only to Glasgow in the friendliness of the staff and their willingness to be lighthearted and realise that the majority of people are not a threat of any kind.
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Expat Bill, I presume that you are quite happy to take the huge risk of going out of your house each day and may be even venture somewhere by car?
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Just to confirm it is check-in staff that we have found lacking in manners NOT security staff who have always been fine.I work with the public myself and do so because I like meeting people and chatting to them and helping them if I can so I cannot understand why people do this type of work if they don’t like communicating and find it hard to smile.
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#11 I agree, there is no point at all doing a job that brings you regularly into contact with the public if you can’t manage a smile. I believe politeness and friendliness should be part of the requirement for all such jobs and consistent failure to be polite should be subject to disciplinary action the same way any other wrong behaviour would be.
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While Mulvie Le Phew’s (#6) wording makes be balk a little, it is true that Jersey has very few residents from ethnic minorities. I am not sure if this should give us reason to be complacent however.
Although this is not a line of inquiry I will discuss publicly any further, there are several aspects of the island itself and its border security which would actually make it an actually desirable location for a terrorist attack. I will not provide details but perhaps any current Police or Customs employees would privately concur.
As such if we relax or indeed fail to tighten restrictions on the basis that we have very few people from ethnic minorities (by which I assume we mean non white Europeans) travelling through the island, this in itself may expose us to greater risk.
By law we cannot also be seen to be singling out other people on the basis of their appearance or religion for extra security searches.
For the record, terrorism is by no means a stranger to the white race group, examples include the IRA, the German RAF (Red Army Faction) and of course Franco-Spanish ETA.
V.
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I have travelled 3 times in the last 3 months without hand luggage and logged in online. On each occasion I was not asked once for any form of identification when leaving Jersey airport – they were more concerned with me taking my belt off as I walked through the metal detector –
Im amazed at how security has been organised
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Interesting that the scene from the comedy film Airplane where the scanner could see through travellers clothes is now becomming a reality !
Re #14, it’s really a challenge walking through the scanner with your trousers threatening to drop to around your ancles ! Underwear with no holes is a wise precaution when flying these days !
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Parachutes on planes instead of life jackets. It’s the way forward, what use is a light and a poxy whistle as you plummet from 32,000 feet anyway!?
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#13 I guess we can since America is now specifying that people from certain countries are a higher risk. Now that is not specifically linked to race of course but there will probably be a majority of one race within each country specified.
Racial/nationality profiling might seem racist/xenophobic to some, however, it’s only actually racist if you believe that person’s race or nationality automatically makes them a terrorist. The fact is that the authorities know this is NOT the case and searches must be carried out politely.
Governments are not saying “everyone from Syria is a terrorist”, but they do know that people from certain countries have a higher risk of being a threat to the West (or does anyone want to dispute that?), they are simply using factual statistical data to keep their existing inhabitatants (which could include people born and raised in Syria) safe! Is that really such a crime? Or is it just practical?
Part of a Government’s job is to keep its people safe after all, if they don’t they’ll not get elected again. I get frisked every time I go through the airport, I suspect this is also racial profiling since colouring-wise I am probably about as far as you can get from the inhabitants of the countries deemed highest risk to the West, I can be used to make a point that it’s not only people of certain colours that get searched! It’s the price we pay for ‘free travel’.
They simply put extra checks on certain nationalities that are higher risk. And people from these countries are higher risk whether we like it or not. It doesn’t mean that the individual themself is higher risk, just that a higher proportion of that country poses a threat to the West than say Australia. These methods are also used to help focus criminal investigations, and again whether we like it or not they can save society a lot of money by focussing resources on a more likely line of enquiry.
The alternative to more thorough searching and using statistics to assist is just to close all borders. That would be classed racist/xenophobic too no doubt.
Anyone got any actual solutions? Frankly I don’t see using hard statistical evidence as racist or xenophobic, I see it as responding to hard data. What the people that are on the hard on of these statistics need to ask themselves is “why is it the case that our nationality makes us more likely to be a terrorist?” Maybe for once, instead of crying racism, someone at the hard end of a statistic might consider that they have a duty to try and change that statistic! There are a group of teenage black men in London trying to do exactly that by finding out who among their peers is involved in gang rapes and then shopping them to the Police. They don’t like the statistic but instead of crying racism they realise the evidence and are doing something about changing it.
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fred:
“Parachutes on planes instead of life jackets. It’s the way forward, what use is a light and a poxy whistle as you plummet from 32,000 feet anyway!?”
Well, since the screening of the up to date “Day of the Triffids” we are likely to see a mass exodus to the aircraft toilets by quick thinking passengers surrounding themselves with inflated life jackets, rightly allocated to others.
This will happen as soon as some serious turbulence is encountered and the plane drops 1000 feet or so without warning.
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I’ve been to Jersey and was rudely harassed on my way in by airport security, probably due to my being an American.
They didn’t look twice at me until they overheard me inquiring about the hire car location, then I was asked the same questions multiple times: who was I visiting, why, and why on Earth was I visiting Jersey. It was quite embarassing, actually.
Let’s just say I’ve traveled to many places and never felt less welcomed and have NEVER been accosted on my way in anywhere, either!
My leaving Jersey was absolutely fine, not a problem, and the staff was very nice.
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#19 You’ve got to be kidding, I guess that’s because you aren’t a foreigner trying to get into America for a pleasant holiday. I’ve been through Customs in Newark using the Visa Waiver programme. The way it’s worded you could be a completely ordinary, hardworking, law-abiding citizen and still have to tick one of the boxes on the back. Of course each box also leaves the possibility that you are a known terrorist or a career criminal!
It’s pathetic frankly.
And I happen to know that the VISA waiver programme only went ahead on the condition that America wanted those boxes added in, otherwise the whole programme would have failed to be implemented.
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