Recently two UK journalists boarded a British Airways shuttle flight between Heathrow and Manchester and concealed three knives disguised as a comb, pen and credit card. Gloating later on national television, they stressed how easy it is to smuggle forbidden items on aircraft and probably sold more copies of their newspaper in the process.
What these irresponsible journalists achieved was to frighten the public again and no doubt cause BA more losses in revenue, which may lead to further job cuts. Everybody knows in this industry that it is impossible to guarantee these items will not go on board.
The way to prevent terrorism is to fight fire with fire and get to the root of it through better intelligence and action.
Perhaps the terrorists or these journalists will turn their attention to the railways, where of course there is no security.
I hope that BA and BAA prosecute these irresponsible journalists, but no doubt this will not happen as the powers of the press are immense and can break a large company with bad publicity.
It is interesting to note that they did not choose an airline such as Easyjet to prove their point. Is there a conspiracy against BA?
Andrew LeeWoking, UK
Source: Flight International