Security checks deterring flyers
WHO needs higher air fares, duties and charges, or climate change activists, to close down Guernsey by strangling the economy when we have airport security? The intimate body massage and intrusion into travellers’ private lives, after queuing half an hour for the privilege, are leading one or two visitors to vow they will not return to Guernsey and even one frequent flying resident to consider emigrating.
An audit on behalf of the UK Border Authority should not mean that Guernsey becomes, in the experience of those who are global travellers, the worst airport in the world for enduring security checks. Surely the airport should be investing in the necessary equipment upgrades? Or should not G4S, the largest security company in the world, be obliged to upgrade under its contract and be subject to a service level agreement requiring a five second experience, as in Southampton and Gatwick, rather than a five minute body search, to bring us into the modern world of travel? Just imagine the chaos if the much vaunted longer runway actually led to more people going through the facility at peak times because we were flying in A320s with 200 people on the early morning flight.
The States seem prepared to throw money at an off-island airline to cannibalise Aurigny’s trade, automatically thereby subsidising both Flybe and Aurigny losses. Would it not be better to make the airport fit for purpose first, with some investment and perhaps an experienced airport management team to run it?
CHRIS RUSSELL
1F, Tudor House,
Le Bordage,
St Peter Port,
GY1 1DB.