Chris Saul's Blog

Sunday November 12, 2006

Streamlining needed

The security check after the Emirtes Business and First Class checkin could do with a bit of improvement to make passenger flow a bit better.

Most security checks I go through either warn you in advance to take off your belt and watch, or simply give you a quick scan if you set the alarm off. This security check sometimes gets set off by my belt, sometimes by my watch and sometimes by both - unfortunately you're never warned in advance what to do. Once you've gone through and the alarm's gone off someone just grunts at you, which isn't very helpful. Am I meant to go through again? Should I remove my shoes, belt and watch? Just my watch? Nothing, just walk through again?

I automatically take my belt off now, but most people end up walking through twice and then going back a third time after asking exactly what the 'grunt' means, which triples the time it takes to get people through.

For some reason, mobile phones aren't scanned at this check point. People just put them in the 'coin box'. I'm no expert, but I'd have thought that a mobile phone would be something that really ought to be checked?