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JimBannerman1

I woud be interested to know if this problem was ever resolved.

An individual airline would rarely, if ever, have control over or responsibility for the security screening. Sometimes, an airport authority will manage that activity directly, sometimes it will subcontract.

The security folk would not raise an eyebrow if it seemed a pax was going to miss a flight, but better managed airports often have queue busters monitoring the lines at busy times to reduce the risk of this happening.

[Bunnahabhain]

(The artist formerly known as Jim!)

Have since met my colleague who missed his flight, which was for leisure purposes returning home with a family group including a young child. Unlike me he’s an infrequent flyer and follows all the advice on maximum time to check in etc, he’s also not the best air passenger in the sense that he does a lot of driving – I’ve flown with him a few times over the years and he exhibits the classic loss of control features – what is there to stop the wing from falling off, how does the pilot know they’ve put enough fuel in and so on. So I can confidently take his assurance that they were at LTN for opening of check in, if not before. Check in itself was no problem, it was only when they went directly to security (something even I always do especially at leisure airports like LGW south and LTN) that there was the particularly long queue. No floor walkers and nobody to ask.

The only resolution was offloading and return of their hold luggage, and fare refund by easyJet. I think they were offered a free transfer to the following day’s flight, but this was no use as they had to be back to work the next morning, so the only option was to drive overnight. Is this a new factor we have to take into account when flying in addition to weather and technical delays etc?

I do wonder in some cases if even the maximum check in time of typically 2 hours is enough to reach the gate for the 30 or so minute close out, given the queues that can form at security. I’ve cut it fine a few times at holiday airports in the Med where the usual 2-position check in is so painfully slow that even if security is quiet, the aircraft is boarding by the time you reach the gate.

If carrying hand luggage only, I’m never sure if you can officially go through security with your home / machine printed or mobile boarding pass prior to the hold luggage check in for that flight opening, if you have arrived at the airport early or wish to. I used to think that checking in hold luggage was a certain guarantee of boarding if security was hectic as it’s obviously more hassle for airport staff to offload your bags from the pile than get you to the front of the queue with a floor walker.

I was once in the same situation at LGW although with hand luggage only. The guy in front of me, also on the same flight, described it as administrative punishment. He’s now Chief Secretary to the Treasury!

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