Security checkpoints inside airport terminals
On my last three trips I have noticed a trend at our airport that I find extremely inconvenient, slightly concerning and for the life of me can not understand what the airport security is hoping to accomplish. Within a particular terminal in the middle of seemingly nowhere, there are guards that ask you to present your boarding pass.
My family and I were taking our vacation last week. We arrived at the airport early in the morning as we had an early flight. We did the usual routine of checking in, acquiring our boarding passes, going through security and waiting at our gate. Once we were settled at the gate, we had a 2 hour wait till we were to board the plane and had not had breakfast. I decided to wander to the coffee shop to get drinks and something to snack on for everyone. In order for me to get to the coffee shop I had to present my boarding pass to a security official. I found this very odd. Intrigued, I presented my boarding pass to her. She glanced at it quickly. From what I could tell based on her eyes, she was looking at the date or terminal number. I was allowed to pass through. I purchased my items and was carrying them back to the gate where my family was, and of course I had to pull out my boarding pass and present it again. This time, I had to juggle the coffees and snacks to get my boarding pass in a position where she could glance at it to give me the okay. I passed through and went back to the gate and wondered what was the point?
After I finished my coffee, I was so curious, I wandered through the entire terminal as far as possible and returned to my gate attempting to understand why this security checkpoint was required. Was there something different about this terminal that made the checkpoint required? I couldn’t find anything. The security personnel force everyone to do it and at times the lineup was quite large with people waiting 10-15 minutes to get through. The sign above the checkpoint is a permanent sign stating that you must present your boarding pass, so I assume the checkpoint is required for some reason yet, there was another permanent sign 100m down the same hall and it was not manned.
Looking at my boarding pass, you can’t identify if it is me or not. I could be holding the wrong boarding pass, a fake boarding pass or someone else’s pass so they can’t be checking for that. There is no way the security personnel are checking if you are on the right flights, as they were not running the boarding pass through any computer to cross reference your information with the information on the boarding pass. They could be checking that it is the right date, right terminal, and maybe that the flight time is within a given range from the current time I suppose, but all this is checked when I pass through the security screening checkpoint in order to get to the gates, and they are glancing way to quickly at the boarding pass to make that level of assessment. You move into a different ’security zone’ when you pass through security screening. You can’t leave that zone without either boarding a plane or going through the security screening again. This ‘checkpoint’ is not different zone, it is just in the middle of the terminal.
As far as I can tell it is just security theatre. It is a rather large inconvenience, a waste of money and time, most importantly my time. I have little to no patience for this type of thing it just makes me angry. I’m all for making sure things are secure. But I expect a security step is necessary and by executing the step, you obtain some benefit. I suppose someone could argue that it is a secondary check to catch people who have slipped past the first screening. In which case I’d suggest you put the money towards fixing the issues with the first step, rather then waste money and people’s time on a step that is easily thwarted by someone who had reason or intent to bypass it. I don’t believe this helps people understand and accept security. It just frustrates them and makes them question it more and more.
