I was on vacation with the family for a few days in Cyprus; it was very nice. On each end, I’ve noticed new things with regards to check-in.
Israel: All luggage is scanned before ticketing, right after the famous non-linear questioning. A bar-code tag is attached to the luggage (this is different than the airline’s tag) before it goes into the machine. Then, you take the luggage and proceed to the ticket counter and check-in normally. This is all done before the hand bags are scanned and in an unrestricted area, so anyone can put anything in the luggage between the scan and ticketing but I can’t imagine there’s a security hole here. I believe that the x-ray pictures are saved in the initial scan and are then compared to another scan before the bag goes on the plane; that’s why they put the bar-code tag initially.
Cyprus: This was an El-Al flight, so we got the interview and an escort followed the bus to the plane (this is true for several places, especially Munich where often you see an armored vehicle escort for flights to Israel; this has historical reasons.) However, this was the only place I’ve seen where the carry-on scanning monitors were in plain view. There were two, one color and one BW; sometimes a square appeared to border an object that might be suspicious. Most often it pointed to booze. I stood there for about 15 minutes behind the guy (who seemed more interested in scanning the girls, than the luggage) looking at the monitors.
2 Comments for check-in, Israel and Cyprus
Arik | September 20, 2005 at 04:29
Steven Murdoch | September 20, 2005 at 10:13
Berlin Schoenfeld airport had a similar scheme where they scanned luggage before it was checked in. Once they had done so, they put a tamper-evident tag on the handle of the bag. Though they clearly have no assurance that something prohibited is not put into the bag after scanning, My guess as to why they do this is so something that looks suspicious on X-ray can be inspected with the owner present, so avoiding breaking any lock. This means they can inspect far more suspicous objects without raising objections, and anything that is spotted on the second scan after check in can be looked at much more closely.
This is really fun. I once had a guy in New Delhi airport which after scanning my luggage (and deciding that a Tibetian bell I had was a jar of pickles) let me stand there with him for half an hour and even pointed out things on the screen and interpreted them for me.
It’s very easy to distinguish electronics, and organic material was purple on his machine. Metal thickness is also very easy to gauge from the color image. In the image you put, however low res it is, I can see he headsets, the shoes, the radio, the aerosole cans and something that looks like a telephone headset. There’s also a hint of some clothes, but that’s a longshot.
– Arik