NorthLink, the ferry company that serves Orkney and Shetland from Aberdeen, as well as across the Pentland Firth, have been told by the Scottish Government to send one of their ferries to Bergen to uplift stranded passengers. Foot passengers only are being carried, at the price of £100 each for a single tiocket to Aberdeen.

I flew GLA-EWR yesterday, and found that security had been heightened a little. The usual procedures took place on entering the departure area, but for passengers joing the Transatlantic flight, there was additional screening at the departure gate. Each and every passenger was given a second screening, comprising a full body pat-down, and their hand baggage was searched (by hand). Shoes also had to be removed and were examined (not x-rayed). Additional time was recommended by check-in staff, with the suggestion that passengers could head to the departure gate from about two hours before the flight was due out. Incidentally, although both the BAA and the airline websites suggested allowing additional time for security, the check-in desks did not open any earlier, which meant that there were quite a number of passengers waiting in the airport check-in area twiddling their thumbs for an hour beforehand. Although I did attempt to do an internet check-in before I left home, when reaching the last page I was advised by the airline’s website that I would have to use a check-in desk at GLA. No surprise there!

The actual screening was not a problem itself, and was carried out in an efficient and professional manner, as one would expect. Once passengers had passed through the second security checks, however, they had no access to any airport facilities at all, and the seating at the gate was insufficient for everybody boarding the flight. That said, I was under the impression that nobody seemed to mind the extra precautions being taken, and were generally pretty understanding of the situation.

As for the staff at Newark… ’nuff said? :rolleyes:

That is for sure. How in the heck did he manage to get a visa with a one-way ticket?

His visa was issued in June 2008. His ticket – not one-way, incidentally – was purchased just a few weeks ago.

However, two very good reasons for giving him a ‘good going over’ certainly at AMS, if not at LOS, appear to have failed to filter through. Firstly, he was ‘shopped’ by his own dear father just a few weeks ago, as being ‘suspicious’. Secondly, he was travelling, allegedly for a two-week period, with little more than a change of underwear (no wonder… ). These two facts should have been reason enough to pull him aside and give him at least a good questioning.

I’m flying out of GLA at the beginning of next week to the US, and am pretty p****d off at the additional hassle that I’m going to have to deal with thanks to this latest incident. Will additional ‘security’, insisted on and being imposed by the US authorities do anything to stop terrorism? Will it b*****y. Besides, once these clowns are stopped from flying, who’s to say that they won’t resort to bringing down aircraft using other means. The occasional use of S-A-M missiles, for example… No amount of increased airport ‘security’ would stop that!

BBC always had a female on the Weekend shift, what was she called…black lass? But she was on her own.

Moira Stewart.

This cracking little model arrived today, very appropriately as it’s the last day of Britannia Airways’ existance.

It’s the Aeroclassics British & Irish model in 1/400 scale, and is one of three models I ordered from a retailer in the USA on Wednesday last week.