Ridiculous security procedures travelling to Australia

[MEL_Traveller]

the no congregating rule is a homeland security directive, and is enforced by random checks of airlines when the appropriate authority might happen to be travelling (can't remember which agency it is but I read they fined an airline when they saw the violation). so airlines have to comply.

6 passengers queuing for a lavatory could conceivably block a clear view of the aisle and cabin, which is why I am thinking it might have been thought up.

 

[serfty]

How would Penny, the first class hostess on Great British Airways ("Come fly with me") handle a 23kg cabin bag? yet it is correct that BA allow 23kg of cabin luggage. ... My argument is that just because duty free grog is cheaper at the far end, it's inefficient to burn aviation fuel just to carry it all.

They wouldn't as the passenger must be able to lift the bag into the overhead locker unaided.

[edit]

I see you have found that.​

[/edit]

...
By all means passengers should be able to take on liquids that they need to consume during their flight -....

Sorry mate - are you going to reimburse me the $10+ extra it costs to purchase JW duty Free on Arrival into OZ Rather than in SIN, AKL, LAX etc?

http://www.australianfrequentflyer....ps/cheap-duty-free-liquor-airports-31533.html

 

[CWM]

Extra airline security measures in the west since 2001 are a form of Jizya tax - and it is very costly. As has been said the only measure taken since then that actually improved security was to strengthen the coughpit doors, the rest is sillyness and a government authority grab, rather easily circumvented by actual terrorists I might add; fortunately for the rest of us few of them are half intelligent (by definition).

 

[Tykeinoz]

Oh my God! The horror!



I really suspect the ¨AustralianGovt¨ doesnt give a flying sh_t where you spend your dollars.

Will be flying With Royal Brunei and in via Brunei airport they are on about no duty free grog allowed thru customs as Aus customs are not allowing grog purchased over seas to enter. Buy it in Aus!??? Big parties in Brunei?

 

[nonscenic]

[Sorry mate - are you going to reimburse me the $10+ extra it costs to purchase JW duty Free on Arrival into OZ Rather than in SIN, AKL, LAX etc?

http://www.australianfrequentflyer....ps/cheap-duty-free-liquor-airports-31533.html

I must admit to buying duty free grog overseas myself, but mainly because of availability rather than the price differential. Recently my wife and I bought two bottles of Absolut Vodka for our daughter in Christchurch, about $23.50 AUD each, but bought a third when we arrived back in Sydney at $30 for the same size bottle, but in a flavour requested by our daughter that wasn't available in NZ. Lugging 4.5 litres of grog through the Qantas "Seamless Transfer" (oxymoron) and onto a SYD-MEL flight made me wonder if duty free is really worth it. Certainly you can get Baileys on special at home at a similar price to duty free.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

I must admit to buying duty free grog overseas myself, but mainly because of availability rather than the price differential. Recently my wife and I bought two bottles of Absolut Vodka for our daughter in Christchurch, about $23.50 AUD each, but bought a third when we arrived back in Sydney at $30 for the same size bottle, but in a flavour requested by our daughter that wasn't available in NZ. Lugging 4.5 litres of grog through the Qantas "Seamless Transfer" (oxymoron) and onto a SYD-MEL flight made me wonder if duty free is really worth it. Certainly you can get Baileys on special at home at a similar price to duty free.

Maybe NZ is not such a good example... but in Singapore you can get the same product for the same price as AU - sometimes a few dollars cheaper - BUT it is in SGD - so saving around 30%. If you're buying so called premium vodkas (according to the Australian market, for example Grey Goose) then you're looking at $20 saving per bottle. Couple of bottles of those plus a carton of cigarettes and you've saved close to $110 over buying on arrival here. If you were lucky to score the recent $113 MEL-SIN fare on the jetstar friday fare frenzy - that's paid for your one way ticket to singapore!!

 

[anabolism]

I flew back to Brisbane on Tuesday night from HKG, and couldn't help but be a little miffed at the absurdity and paranoia that is the boarding procedure for flights to Australia. They had pretty much closed off one arm of the terminal (the gate 60-71 end) and dedicated it to Australian flights. There were bag searches and passport checks, and no-one else was allowed into the area. Not to mention that I wasn't allowed to purchase any duty free for the flight either, so forced to pay Brisbane duty free prices.

What's going on? Why the paranoia from the Australian government? There wasn't the same arrangement for flights to the US or Europe, just the standard boarding gate, so why are we special?

In my experience, HKG does this for flights to the U.S. as well. It is quite irritating. Last time, the searcher turned up several tiny pots of lip balm that had been forgotten in a nook of my laptop bag for many years.

Blame HK not Australia.

HK: Airport Security - Hong Kong International Airport

The plastic bag must be presented separately from other hand baggage for inspection at the security point. Only one transparent plastic bag per passenger is permitted;

They may say this, but last few times, they didn't require that the liquid bag be out and examined separately. This has also been my experience at many airports around the world, with everywhere in the U.S. and U.K. major exceptions (still insisting on the bags being out and examined).

my point was more about the difference in security level for flights departing to Australia in comparison to those to the rest of the world. I don't understand how it is that Australia believe itself to be more vulnerable or likely to be attacked by terrorists than say the US, the UK, or anywhere in mainland Europe.

Well, they seem to do this for U.S.-bound flights as well.

The whole "liquid explosives" thing is a complete furphy from the get-go, so in real life there's no "security weakness" to "seal up".

Very true. The whole nonsense is very annoying.

It may seem stupid to specify 6 people, but think of it from this angle: Yes, it could almost certainly pose a problem if 50 people formed a scrum somewhere in the plane. Likewise 49 people. So to control this sort of thing crew need rules they can refer to to prevent such gatherings. So some poor bugger has to define a number (in this case 6) of people that is unacceptable. He or she would be more of an idiot, IMHO, if they simply specified a ¨crowd¨rather than a number, as this would be impossible to enforce.

U.S. airlines announce "Due to security restrictions, passengers are not permitted to congregate in the galleys or near the lavatories." No explicit number is given.

Of all the idiotic "security" measures that have been imposed since 2001, the only one that actually has some reasoning behind it that would improve security is reinforcing and securing the entrance to the flight deck. Everything else is just theatre, or a justification for authorities to fish for other offences like drug possession.

Indeed.

 

[Apples]

Just flew back to Sydney from Bangkok. All securty cleared until final gate where they took my half empty 150ml bottle of make-up so it isn't just duty free alcohol that is off limits.

 

[UP4014]

The Australian Govt in its infinite wisdom has decided that certain airports don't have enough security around their airside areas and that therefore duty free liquids bought airside could be tampered with or something like that. What I really think is that they just don't want you to buy duty free elsewhere and prefer you to spend your money on DF on arrival. I think SIN is still ok, but HKG has been that way now for several years and I'm pretty sure BKK is the same now.

Cheers

Timmi

They are probably right re the not enough airport security at some overseas locations.

 

[juddles]

...
Indeed....

Anabolism, I sort of agree, but my struggle is that when you or I are feeling an opinion, how can we be certain we know so much more than the people involved in designing the policy?

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Anabolism, I sort of agree, but my struggle is that when you or I are feeling an opinion, how can we be certain we know so much more than the people involved in designing the policy?

that's the beauty of living in a free democracy where we have the right to question the actions of our law makers.

Those law makers have the option to make it all go away by providing accurate and transparent information. If they don't, and we are left with rules that only affect us (and USA bound flights) then we are right to question if we want to when the rest of the world has decided it's good enough to dispense with the requirement but we haven't. (With all due respect, on the face of it it's hardly likely that we in AU face any more threat than the UK... so we do end up looking a bit stupid and we should question that)

 

[anabolism]

Anabolism, I sort of agree, but my struggle is that when you or I are feeling an opinion, how can we be certain we know so much more than the people involved in designing the policy?

I'm always willing to believe that I've got it wrong, especially because I continuously find things that are more complex than they appear at first. However, in this case, I also look to known security experts, such as Bruce Schneier (see Schneier on Security) who has written a number of clear and explicit articles on the theatrics versus security issue.

For example, see this terrific post: Hawley Channels His Inner Schneier

Or this short one: TSA Behavioral Detection Statistics

Or use Google for a handy list of TSA-related blog posts.

 

[Justchecking]

What I find emminently entertaining about this thread is summarised here....

That anyone actually believes the Australian government is capable of....well anything really is quite funny. It's not a large organisation of focused individuals orchestrating a carefully choreographed puppet show for the subjugation of the Australian populace. If it had either that much combined intelligence or co-ordination we could claim world dominance. Most Australian organisations, both public and private, are flat out finding their own backsides with two hands. Anyone who's ever sat in an office in this country for more than an hour would immediately understand the time wasting and lack of internal communication they harbour. But it's nice to think someone still believes in genius in this country.

If it all were for the future profit potential of Australian DF enterprises then why is it not an across the board measure? ie, no duty free can be brought into Australia, it has to all be purchased here? Why stop at a handful of random airports and still allow other airports through?

Is duty free profit potential really that big? Now compared to our personal wage, yeah maybe huge, but in the eye's of a true influential business person? Not really. In fact it represents a tiny amount of profit potential and certainly nothing to warrant supposedly lobby-ing and schmoozing something as big as 'The Government' over.

Since when has 'The Government' given a toss about the profitability and protection of local industry? Australian manufacturing base? Gone. Australian airline protection from foreign carriers? Gone. Import duties levied to protect locally produced goods? Gone. But yet they are interested in protecting the revenues of a few DF shops in our airports....bizarre!

I'm more inclined to believe that whatever policies exist within 'The Government' here do so as a result of chance and incompetence than conspiracy, which would actually require some measure of intelligence and a great deal of co-ordination to pull off.

 

[Robmn]

What I find emminently entertaining about this thread is summarised here....

That anyone actually believes the Australian government is capable of....well anything really is quite funny. It's not a large organisation of focused individuals orchestrating a carefully choreographed puppet show for the subjugation of the Australian populace. If it had either that much combined intelligence or co-ordination we could claim world dominance. Most Australian organisations, both public and private, are flat out finding their own backsides with two hands. Anyone who's ever sat in an office in this country for more than an hour would immediately understand the time wasting and lack of internal communication they harbour. But it's nice to think someone still believes in genius in this country.


I'm more inclined to believe that whatever policies exist within 'The Government' here do so as a result of chance and incompetence than conspiracy, which would actually require some measure of intelligence and a great deal of co-ordination to pull off.

How true we have lost all our protection and have become a crowd pleaser.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Since when has 'The Government' given a toss about the profitability and protection of local industry?

the car industry

 

[ozmille]

Last week in BKK an elderly couple had a couple of bottles of alcohol confiscated at the gate security. They had big banners up with the Australian Government logo on it. I assumed that the shops would not sell to you if you travel to AU but apparently they don't. The couple were not happy about it.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Last week in BKK an elderly couple had a couple of bottles of alcohol confiscated at the gate security. They had big banners up with the Australian Government logo on it. I assumed that the shops would not sell to you if you travel to AU but apparently they don't. The couple were not happy about it.

they won't sell to you in BKK if you are flying to AU. Every shop asks that. But the couple may have purchased it in another country.

 

[ozmille]

they won't sell to you in BKK if you are flying to AU. Every shop asks that. But the couple may have purchased it in another country.

That is what I thought, it would be pretty bad if the shops in the airport would sell it if it isn't allowed to be taken out.

 

[drron]

What I find emminently entertaining about this thread is summarised here....

That anyone actually believes the Australian government is capable of....well anything really is quite funny. It's not a large organisation of focused individuals orchestrating a carefully choreographed puppet show for the subjugation of the Australian populace. If it had either that much combined intelligence or co-ordination we could claim world dominance. Most Australian organisations, both public and private, are flat out finding their own backsides with two hands. Anyone who's ever sat in an office in this country for more than an hour would immediately understand the time wasting and lack of internal communication they harbour. But it's nice to think someone still believes in genius in this country.

If it all were for the future profit potential of Australian DF enterprises then why is it not an across the board measure? ie, no duty free can be brought into Australia, it has to all be purchased here? Why stop at a handful of random airports and still allow other airports through?

Is duty free profit potential really that big? Now compared to our personal wage, yeah maybe huge, but in the eye's of a true influential business person? Not really. In fact it represents a tiny amount of profit potential and certainly nothing to warrant supposedly lobby-ing and schmoozing something as big as 'The Government' over.

Since when has 'The Government' given a toss about the profitability and protection of local industry? Australian manufacturing base? Gone. Australian airline protection from foreign carriers? Gone. Import duties levied to protect locally produced goods? Gone. But yet they are interested in protecting the revenues of a few DF shops in our airports....bizarre!

I'm more inclined to believe that whatever policies exist within 'The Government' here do so as a result of chance and incompetence than conspiracy, which would actually require some measure of intelligence and a great deal of co-ordination to pull off.

Totally agree.An interesting article in today's SMH-
Health dumped unfit staff on hospital

And your last paragraph is absolutely correct.I spent a day on the hustings with a former SA premier.His words to me were-"Ron if it is ever a decision between a stuff up or a conspiracy when it comes to Government's actions the stuff up wins every time."

 

[browski]

the car industry

1. Media Ownership
2. Qantas
3. Banks
4. Wheat exports, banana imports
5. Australia Network (Aust overseas TV)
6. Rio Tinto veto of China purchase.

..........and countless other examples.