We ended our visit to England and exited England via Manchester airport. Terminal 1 last thursday. A few days earlier I had told my family that we would bypass manchester altogether , take the financial loss and instead leave from John Lennon airport and fly to Berlin instead and from there , home.
I had spoke to Pob regarding my fears on the matter , he seemed to think everything would be ok.
I searched on the internet and could find only that Rapiscan scanners were only at terminal 2 at Manchester airport.
So we headed to Manchester airport.
Because we kept our child in the pram , i.e. we did not hand in the pram at check in we were approached by someone as we approached the twisting fenced in queue of security. We were guided through a thing called fast track. We just went through a seperate entrance and virtually straight to the front of the queue and to the desk were all ones goodies are placed into those trays for scanning.
We were the only ones at this desk having left everyone else behind due to our fast track experience.
As I started to place coins , keys , belt etc into a tray i looked over to my left and there stood the monsters. , about 3/4 in a line. The writing on the side of one of the monsters left me in no doubt to what i was looking at "RAPISCAN".
I saw a few people going in with their hands in the surrender position , they were smiling! Like it was a funfair ride or something , or maybe they had to put a brave face on.
I turned to the security guy who was in charge with the trays and i said "Do you have to go through them ?"
He replied , only if you set the metal detector off.
I replied "Well if we set the metal detector off we wont be flying" He never replied and i walked to and through the metal detector without setting it off. The security guy there told me to pass through via the side of the Rapiscan thing , i told him i was waiting for my child who then walked through , again without setting anything off , and then followed by my wife "The Hammer" again no metal detector alarm going off.
We walked through without going through the Rapiscan but myself and the Hammer were very fazed out for about half an hour after.first walking in one direction without much thought to where we where going , then another. I would say we were in shock at the reality of how things are and how fortunate we were not to be asked go through the Rapiscan.
We will NEVER fly from an airport using these things again!
As we waited to collect our belts , keys etc i watched as people walked into these monsters to be scanned , heard the metal detectors going off (many times) and others being sent through. Were we lucky? We cant believe that.
i think , possibly
1) Some one was dictating whether those metal detectors went off or not from a cctv control room. For some reason , maybe because we had a child and that I had already stated we would refuse a Rapiscan that they did not want us holding up the queue , and letting others know that there are people who refuse these things.
Or
2) The universe was with us.
Presently I cant get it out of my mind even though we are back in the false safe security of the country we live in at present. The Hammer feels the same.
I had spoke to Pob regarding my fears on the matter , he seemed to think everything would be ok.
I searched on the internet and could find only that Rapiscan scanners were only at terminal 2 at Manchester airport.
So we headed to Manchester airport.
Because we kept our child in the pram , i.e. we did not hand in the pram at check in we were approached by someone as we approached the twisting fenced in queue of security. We were guided through a thing called fast track. We just went through a seperate entrance and virtually straight to the front of the queue and to the desk were all ones goodies are placed into those trays for scanning.
We were the only ones at this desk having left everyone else behind due to our fast track experience.
As I started to place coins , keys , belt etc into a tray i looked over to my left and there stood the monsters. , about 3/4 in a line. The writing on the side of one of the monsters left me in no doubt to what i was looking at "RAPISCAN".
I saw a few people going in with their hands in the surrender position , they were smiling! Like it was a funfair ride or something , or maybe they had to put a brave face on.
I turned to the security guy who was in charge with the trays and i said "Do you have to go through them ?"
He replied , only if you set the metal detector off.
I replied "Well if we set the metal detector off we wont be flying" He never replied and i walked to and through the metal detector without setting it off. The security guy there told me to pass through via the side of the Rapiscan thing , i told him i was waiting for my child who then walked through , again without setting anything off , and then followed by my wife "The Hammer" again no metal detector alarm going off.
We walked through without going through the Rapiscan but myself and the Hammer were very fazed out for about half an hour after.first walking in one direction without much thought to where we where going , then another. I would say we were in shock at the reality of how things are and how fortunate we were not to be asked go through the Rapiscan.
We will NEVER fly from an airport using these things again!
As we waited to collect our belts , keys etc i watched as people walked into these monsters to be scanned , heard the metal detectors going off (many times) and others being sent through. Were we lucky? We cant believe that.
i think , possibly
1) Some one was dictating whether those metal detectors went off or not from a cctv control room. For some reason , maybe because we had a child and that I had already stated we would refuse a Rapiscan that they did not want us holding up the queue , and letting others know that there are people who refuse these things.
Or
2) The universe was with us.
Presently I cant get it out of my mind even though we are back in the false safe security of the country we live in at present. The Hammer feels the same.
