BA to fingerprint domestic passengers

[Ian Batten]

On 29 Feb 2008, at 17:53, Roland Perry wrote:

>
> 2) What's special at T5 - domestic and international passengers mingle
>    freely in the shops and bars at East Midlands Airport

There's probably not a lot of people transferring through EMA; LHR T5  
will have a massive number of transfer passengers, especially those  
transferring from long haul to UK internal flights.  The issue, I  
think, it segregation of arriving passengers --- who will want to, and  
who the airport will want to, use the restaurants and such if they are  
transferring --- from internal departures.

At BHX they photograph internal passengers as they go airside, and  
then check those photographs as you go into the gate lounge.   
Fingerprints have the advantage you can automate the process, I suppose.

I thought about it, and I think the attack they're worried about is  
this:

My Three Bad Friends, who don't want to go through UK passport  
control, board a plane from overseas to BHX.  I buy four tickets from  
BHX to an arbitrary internal airport, ideally one which has only a  
small number of non-internal flights (so there are few Customs and  
Passport people around).   I check in with three of my arbitrary  
people.  My three arbitrary companions leave the airport, but I go  
airside with four boarding passes.  Once airside I meet my Three Bad  
Friends, give them their boarding passes and head for the gate to  
catch the plane to Aberdeen.    The person that takes the tickets  
airside can't just exit because although BHX doesn't do a good job of  
segregating international arrivals from internal departures they _do_  
do a good job of segregating internal arrivals.

At ABZ we are four domestic arrivals on a domestic flight, so we can  
head off into the fleshpots unmolested (*).  Job done.  We now return  
to Birmingham, if that was our original destination, by train or car.   
Or we can fly: checking in with fake ID isn't a big deal on a domestic  
flight, or as passports aren't checked against the UKPA database we  
could in fact use the passports that would have been toxic on our  
original arrival in the UK.  A fake EU driving license --- do _you_  
know what a Greek driving license should look like? --- would be  
perfectly good, though.

My guess, anyway.

ian



(*) Sorry, I can't resist it.  Newpaper headline: ``Taxi accident in  
Aberdeen: Fifteen Scotsman Hurt!''