We are the UK

Travelling, from London Heathrow to Abu Dhabi, out of Terminal 4 is not a stellar travel experience.
T4 has very little to offer passengers. Seating areas are not comfortable, connectivity is not the greatest, restaurant options are limited and shopping is lackluster.

I am all for thorough security checks, but when the line of people waiting for additional inspection of their bags exceeds 5 at any one time I start to wonder about the validity of the extra effort.

I went through security, as usual laptop out in a bin and my iPad stayed in my carry on bag. It seems the person manning the x-ray machine had problems with what he saw, which is good; much better than  the usual slouching sleepy eyed operators. My bag got flagged and was side tracked to the side for special additional security checks.

I had to empty it, well most of it. It got swabbed, multiple repeated swabs of different items and the inside of my bag and then one test. Finally, my bag and its contents went back through the x-ray, the discussion seemed to center around the cases I keep my glasses in.

Finally, I was thanked for my patience and asked to pack my stuff. It is your iPad, she volunteered, it should have been out in the bin. Oh, but nobody requires an iPad in a bin for x-ray not even the States. We are not the States, we are the UK.

Forgive me my mistake, but couldn't we just have taken the iPad out and run it again with the bag through the x-ray like everyone else in the world, instead of keeping me and others waiting for 15 minutes and in some cases even more to find nothing at the end, maybe the guy at the x-ray requires more training.

Who Is On My Flight?

"Oluwaseun Noibi, 24, reportedly boarded a flight in New York last week using an expired boarding pass with someone else’s name on it. The flight crew didn’t even realize there was a stowaway on the plane until halfway through the flight, when they realized they had an extra passenger in a premium seat. TSA insists Noibi was screened properly but that it didn’t “properly authenticate the passenger’s documentation.”" Read the full blog on Elliott.org


This incident is pure incompetence and someone not paying attention. The fact that it slipped through the TSA does not absolve the airline from the responsibility of making sure who is flying on board their aircraft. All airlines check boarding passes electronically against their departure control system database to ensure all checked in passengers have boarded the aircraft.

A few airlines still have the Senior Cabin Crew Member perform a final check, at the aircraft door, of the boarding pass against the passport. It is not only for the identity of the passenger but more importantly  the flight number, destination and date;  followed by a quick passengers count to make sure it tallies with the manifest.

Airlines stopped doing this because they want to board passengers fast, this procedure does not delay a turnaround, Air Arabia turns around their flights in 45 minutes.

The TSA procedures are indirectly making it easier for airlines to relax their procedures. This is not a security problem, a passenger with a valid boarding pass can still get on the wrong flight. A lot of countries have security checks performed prior to Check In which ensures that the passenger has a valid ticket and is issued with the proper boarding pass.

9/11

My thoughts to the families of all who were lost on board the aircraft, on the ground and all those who risked their lives to rescue people in the rubble. They are remembered every time an aircraft takes off and lands safely.

I was working late at the office (+8 EST) when my wife called to tell me an aircraft hit one of the World Trade Center towers. My first thought was it must be a small General Aviation aircraft. I frantically tried to get CNN breaking news but with no success. I tried to phone my cousin who lives in NYC but with no luck. Then my wife called again to tell me about the second aircraft and the collapse of both towers. I just could not believe what she said. On the way home I listened to the radio and one of the stations was carrying a live commentary of the unfolding horror.

That day touched us in several ways for my sister in law's cousin was in the WTC when it collapsed.

9/11 heralded a new era for aviation, a profession that i am passionate about, a loss of innocence. For me Aviation was a means of bringing people together, of bringing joy, happiness and peace to people. Sure we had our share of hijacking and security problems but never on that scale.

9/11 started a new era of rigorous security regimes, a totally different way of looking at Aviation. I have to admit, at the beginning I hated all these extra security measures, they tended to take the fun out of travelling. By time it became second nature to all of us in the profession. It became a reality as well as a necessity. I know a lot of people still complain about going through security and I realise a lot of mistakes were committed and a lot of lessons learnt were applied and things are being done better, more professionally and in a more friendly manner.

9/11 should not have happened, but it did. One painful and tragic lesson, a wake up call to all of us of the potential destruction that can be inflicted. Aviation professionals all over the world are working diligently to ensure that 9/11 never happens again.

Angels in the Sky

Summer holidays are almost over and by now most of us have flown and came back home. We also swapped our horror and war stories of how terrible the service on board the aircraft was or said our few kind words about how helpful the Cabin Crew/Flight Attendant(s) were.

Well, have you ever wondered why are these young (or in some cases not so young) women and men on board the flight. For most of us, they are here to do the service, and be there for our every little request. Try again, these are highly trained people, they spend five weeks doing initial training in Safety and Security Procedures, First Aid and Fire Fighting among other subject and then have periodic training to stay current.

Their main purpose in life is to make sure that the passengers remain safe and secured and finally well served with a smile.

So next time you travel don't bring on board carry on luggage that weighs more than your checked baggage and expect them to lift it for you (there is a reason why not, if one hurts their back and have to be offloaded passengers may have to be offloaded to stay within the rule of 50 passengers per Cabin Crew/Flight Attendant);

or sneak to the toilet for a cigarette and set smoke alarms or God forbid start a fire;

or horse around and be unruly (trust me they will restrain you)

Try to make their life a little easier and they will do their best to keep you safe and secure and mostly happy.

They are your Angels in the Sky.

Double Standards

Double Standards, who among us have not voiced these accusations against parents, spouses and or bosses. We all had damn good reasons, didn't we. I never gave it a second thought, until I started giving Quality Awareness courses and found out that we wallow in Double Standards.
How so, in Aviation just as in other critical industries; Quality, Safety and Security are not nice things to have, they are core values, they are culture and should be second nature. We should breathe, think and live these values. (This is the party line)
Back to reality, in Quality there is a need for continuous improvement and we have that nice Plan, Do, Check, ACT (PDCA for short) process. In our personal life PDCA is intuitive, we plan to go some place, we start the journey (do) we find a problem we change our route (act) and then check again to see if there is another problem until we reach our destination. And we do that for every thing we do.
The other intuitive aspect is Risk Assessment, in our personal lives (unless we are distracted or doped) we run a quick risk assessment and mitigate the risk for every thing we do, be it crossing the street, driving, playing or cooking you name it.

So why don't we use it in our professional life, the standard answer is we are too busy with work, duh. Really, too busy to improve or be safe. Why is it when it comes to our personal issues we perform certain things and when it comes to work we don't even think of these things; Simple DOUBLE STANDARDS.

So please before you start accusing people of double standards, have an inward look at yourself.