I have travelled quite a bit since the terrorist plot to blow up planes was uncovered two weeks ago in England. In fact, I actually landed at Heathrow on the Thursday morning it all went down, and was kept waiting on Heathrow’s runway for 2 hours before being allowed to park and disembark (if you watched BBC or Sky News that morning, you would have seen us sitting on the runway, as the SAA Boeing we were in was in the TV’s crew background). This was NOT fun, as I had my wife, mother-in-law and three daughters (all under 8 years old) with me.
There has, of course, been the usual panic and reactions from everyone. Firstly, the British Security chaps banned ALL hand luggage – yes, everything. You couldn’t even take a magazine on board with you. Now, they are allowing everyone to take one piece of baggage on board, but it is smaller than what was previously allowed, by a few centimetres (see photo). Since the terrorists are believed to have been creating bombs in soda (fizzy drink) cans, I wonder how this will help. It makes no sense.
I really do believe that this is an irrational bit of policing. What difference could it possibly make? None. But they have to be SEEN to be doing something, so they reduce the size of hand luggage by 20%, and now I am supposed to fell safe? What are they thinking, and why do we all just accept it? (It is, however, another instance of how so far out of touch the airline industry is from its customers…).

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