Heathrow chaos

Boing Boing have a couple of posts detailing the sheer incompetence and idiocy of the airlines in the UK following the latest terrorism threat.

They link to a blog by "Tango" describing his three days of misery stuck at Heathrow. Lowlights include his flight being cancelled, then being flow empty to its scheduled destination, where it picked up passengers and continued on its way; airlines unable to re-book passengers' tickets at the ticket counter unless they phoned; two to three hour waits for each security check, with most people going through three or more checks; and bags and bags of people's personal property been thrown away by the airlines, including mobile phones, iPods, cameras, books, even jewellery.

("Look, it's a book! Pages made of paper! Here, I'll flip through it, you can even check it yourself!"

"Could be a bomb disguised as a book. With exploding ink.")

But at least people are safer, right?

No. At the height of the security alert, a twelve year old boy managed to get a seat on a plane without going through security, or even having a ticket. The economy disrupted by tens of millions of dollars, at least ten thousand pieces of lost luggage, and actual security was improved not one whit.

Boing Boing also discusses the likelihood of the alleged terrorist bombs working. At least the airports are keeping us safe from twelve years of research about Shakespeare being smuggled onto our planes.