Non-Subscriber Extract
Report says long queues at UK airports could become terrorist target
By Ben Vogel
27 July 2007
Measures meant to improve security at UK airports have created confusion and may themselves present new targets for terrorists, a wide-ranging report has claimed.
Surveying a sector in which the general picture "is one of longer queues, increased waiting times to go through security and increasing intrusion for passengers", the House of Commons Transport Select Committee report on 'Passengers' Experiences of Air Travel' stated that the more stringent security requirements introduced since the alleged 10 August 2006 terrorist plot to blow up passenger aircraft have negatively affected airports, airlines and customer satisfaction levels, particularly at major hubs such as London Heathrow.
Most worryingly, some experts believe that the queues of hundreds of passengers in check-in areas constitute a security hazard. In his testimony before the committee in October 2006, Professor Alan Hatcher of the International School for Security and Explosives Education said: "One of my concerns is that we are creating new targets. We have lines of people in terminals now, 200, 300 people in a queue, your bag is not searched when you go in or out, you can take 23 kg of baggage with you and 23 kg of ammonium nitrate mix would... make a good impact."