Recent experience re: CDG security
 

The current experience going through security at CDG for flights departing to the US remains dismal. I flew back to the US on 26 Oct. The initial screening was consistent with that of the "pre-liquid ban" with the exception of declaring liquids at the ticket counter and having them placed in a SEALED bag (If your items are already in a sealed baggie, they put it in another sealed baggie.)

However, at the gate is where all the fun begins. For some reason unbeknownst to many of us waiting on the flight--they did not pre-board Business Class. Instead, you had a push of people trying to give their tickets to the agents. Once your boarding pass is screened through the machine, more agents are then lined up in the jet bridge to do another personal and baggage check. There were four stations for the entire flight (a 767 in my case). The process took in excess of 1.5 hours to screen everyone once boarding began.

Part of the delay was that there were apparently new agents who didn't know the "liquid" rules. My agent proceeded to open my sealed bag of liquids--open each item, and put them aside. I asked what she was doing and she indicated that no liquids were allowed on board. At that point, she had been going through my bags for at least 10 minutes and I requested that she get her supervisor. After a fairly long discussion in French--part of which I could understand and part of which was over my head--she finally closed all of my bags, gave me back all of my liquids, and said "have a nice day."

You then proceeded down a flight of stairs to waiting buses. There were 3 double buses for our flight. Once these were loaded, they then bussed you out to the plane and you needed to climb stairs to board.

My advice for anyone departing from CDG to the US is as follows:
1) Make sure that you can easily carry your carry-on bags when climbing stairs. Although I didn't have a problem, we had many elderly people on our flight who experienced problems.
2) Make sure you understand the US rules re: carry-on of liquids. If your liquids are in the sealed bag and they try to throw them away--demand to see a supervisor.
3) Prepare for delays. Our flight was delayed for almost 2 hours departing CDG and we ended up missing our "flight window" out of CDG. We then needed to wait until we could receive another one. Many people on our flight missed their connections.

Sounds lovely!!!! I'll be going through that soon. I'm just checking everything. I have a non-stop CDG to SFO so will HOPE all arrives.

We returned yesterday and going through CDG was the worst experience. We got to the airport a little more than 2 hrs prior to the flight and proceeded to go through all the check points. By the time we got to the gate they were boarding! It should not take 2 hrs to get to through all that stuff, but it did.

We flew Northwest and our problems were with getting our boarding passes. We had to go up to the ticket counter. It seemed that as you waited in line there were flight agents that would pull people out, let them use the computer, and as they were done they could go to the next avaiable person at the counter - bypassing all the people that were waiting in line. We tried to use the computer thing, but it wouldn't work and so we had to wait in line. It was incredibly frustrating. By the time we got to the flight most people had already boarded so the line wasn't so bad. Our bags were not checked at that point.

Then again, coming home from vacation is never a fun experience :)

My god i fear all that for my trip to Rome next month. I am flying the dreadful ALITALIA!

I have to say I typicall fly thru Frankfurt and even though the lines for the secondary security check are long, they are very efficient. I don't know what they do in Rome and Paris, but in Germany everyone gets a personal "massage" at the second level of security. It's the best date i have had in years.....

We connected to the US via CDG from Florence on Oct. 23rd. We got through the first general security check fine. They offered socks to wear, haha. And the agents were more interested in the men's wallets being taken out and screened separately. Had an Italian bottled water in the backpack, but it was passed.

Everything LoriS described is true. Just after you see your gate you'll see a shuttled bus (a packed shuttle bus in our case) waiting. You hand over your boarding pass and dash to the shuttle. In our case I got pulled aside by a Lily Tomlin lookalike who wants to act busy. My husband did not know I was pulled aside and went into the bus. Luckily he realized I was not on board and came out in time to find me. He had my boarding pass and I had his passport; how fun that would have been had we been separated. Lily Tomlin lookalike found a less than 3 oz. contact lens rewetting solution in my purse. Okay, she cofiscated it citing the liquids ban rule. I did not want to waste time arguing but thought she was wrong.

I got the okay from the Ms. Tomlin lookalike and my husband and I boarded a second shuttle bus. Lo and behold more people started filling up this second shuttle bus. We observed some who were pulled aside for checking. The men were checked by a man and the women were checked my Ms. Tomlin lookalike.

Another husband jumped onto the shuttle bus thinking the wife was following. But, she, like myself was pulled aside by the agent. He did the same thing as my husband and ran out the bus to find her. I think perhaps the CDG agents must have a secret camera onboard these buses to record the reactions of husbands.

In short, CDG is a nightmare for security and if you are immobile or have problems in navigating stairs that makes things even worse. You are expected to board and disembark from steps from the plane onto the tarmac rain or shine. If it rains these metal stairs are slippery. Then you fact steps when you get to the terminal.

Our flight was delayed about 45 minutes to an hour.

Think of all the time that could have been saved if nobody had any liquids in their carry-ons.

Hope this gets better by the end of April - when I have a flight to CDG. Or I guess it's the RETURN flight that will be the problem! LoriS, what airline were you on? I wonder if it's bad on all the airlines.

Yes. It's the flights to the US that are problematic mostly.

Anyone who, like me, has a problem with stairs can request a wheelchair. That will trigger the use of a people-lifter, a small version of the type used at Dulles, to take you up to the level of the plane without having to deal with stairs. It's a bit of an adventure, too. I found most of the staff at CDG who assist limited-mobility passengers to be helpful and pleasant.

The second security inspection for our American Airlines flight was extremely detailed. Our liquids were examined, but the three breakable purchases in my carry-on bag aroused considerable interest and had to be explained and examined. But my stuffed French poodle, with head sticking out of my tote bag, was a great ice-breaker.

Also people with infants and small children had to navigate the stairs like anyone else. It was bad as they had to deal with carrying their strollers too. I don't know if there is help for them. I didn't see any offered.

This is a typical over reaction from customs who generally need both hands to find their backsides. When they were worried about sharp objects, nail clippers were confiscated as well as toy soldiers' plastic guns.


I think most places people fly to you can buy whatever liquids you need so is there any reason to take them on board at all?


Richard Reid was a shoe bomber a few years back. A muslim with explosives in his shoes, which he tried to ignite. Has anyone ever had their shoes examined by customs because of this? About two billion people fly each year now. In decades has anyone ever heard of a liquid explosive being used to actually cause a terrorist incident on a plane? I am all for a safe flight but customs honestly do not have a clue.

We flew with Emirates from CDG to Australia via Dubai in early October, with minimal obstruction and lots of friendly smiles and assistance! WE boarded via an air bridge, with a seperate line for Business class and we left exactly on time.

I flew Air France to Atlanta out of terminal 2E at the end of September. Check-in was a breeze and the security line was very short. Security was thorough but polite and rapid. I was through in about 10 minutes. We did have to be bused to the plane that didnt bother me and I enjoy getting a nice look at the bird I will be flying before boarding.

My mother left from terminal 2E on Delta a couple of weeks ago and her experience was the same.

What I find really amusing is that I've changed my name so my passport has a stamp in the back with my correct name. The name that is under my picture is my old name and doesn't match the name on my ticket. Wanna take a guess at how many people actually catch that? I counted 3 this last trip, which is a actually a low percentage considering how many people checked the boarding pass and passport. Makes me wonder what they are looking at.

Kaneda asks,

>Has anyone ever had their shoes examined by customs because of this? <

It's Security, not Customs that does the checking, and the answer is YES, even on domestic flights out of ATL we have to remove our shoes and have them scanned.

>...has anyone ever heard of a liquid explosive being used to actually cause a terrorist incident on a plane?<

Again, YES. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oplan_Bojinka

Even if there had been no successful incidents, are we supposed to wait until after a plane is blown up?

Sorry that you have been inconvenienced, but I would rather leave early and arrive at my destination late, than not arrive at all.

((I))

This is the same thing my daughter went through in late September, but her attitude toward it -- it's a necessary evil -- was different.

Some of this stuff -- buses to remote planes, climbing the stairs to the aircraft -- have always been a feature of CDG as well as FCO, Munich (almost a brand new airport and a marvel of high tech), and regional jets in the US. Pain in the rear? Yes. Hard on older travelers or those with handicaps or hauling infants? Yes, but here to stay. Get over it.

Many of the regulations that posters complain about were US requirements -- note the difference on the Marko's non-US flight. Badly and inconsistently administered? No doubt and no different from the US at all. What may differ a lot is that in France the customer is almost always wrong, for all kinds of cultural reasons I won't go into here. But this is the future.

I had a good attitude about what to expect at CDG as it's all expected nowadays. Telling others to get over it is blunt but true, right? I expected at worst to miss the flight altogether. Air France don't want do to that so they will delay the flight until everyone is aboard. That's what happened with our flight.

Flying to Chicago from CDG earlier this month on American we were able to board via the jetway, but they did do the search of all carry-ons after we were into the jetway. More concerning was the abandoned luggage in the check-in area that caused them to evacuate that portion of the airport for about an hour. (I expect someone's undies ultimately got blown to kingdom come from that.) They were pretty bad about offering any information about what was going on; we all just stood there either glad we'd arrived plenty early or freaking out and complaining loudly that we were going to miss our flight. Fortunately I was among the former folks, not the latter! :-)

I flew out of CDG to Atlanta, and my experience was similar to that of MorganB. Going through security at CDG is a day at the beach in comparison to what you have to go through in Atlanta. I thought it was because of the heightened security, but then I learned that this is SOP.

Then you were fortunate everything was a breeze. I suppose it depends on who the agents on duty are.

ira. I suppose the people at H-J Atlanta must be paranoid. I have flown hundreds of times, dozens of times to America included, and never been asked to remove my shoes.

The wikipedia (said to be as accurate as listening to a man down the pub, by the British press) article merely mentioned plans for a liquid bomb yet in ten years after that, no muslim terrorist actually used one, so maybe it was a lie, or the bomb did not work? So, NO! The other bomb in the article merely contained acetone as one of a number of ingredients.

If you want to bring a plane down, it does not need any fancy bombs or anything else. You just need a few men to hold the others back while you open a main door to the aircraft. Where do you draw a sensible line on what just might happen on November 32nd or real life?

Note. On one trip to Mexico some years ago, we had to get off with our hand baggage in Orlando and wait in the terminal between flights. People going out into the street, having been through checks at Heathrow and having flown across the Atlantic were then searched and had their bags x-rayed before being allowed onto the streets of America. Dumb-de-dumb-dumb!

Did you know that there are millimetre wave machines at Heathrow? Walk through one and it effectively removes your clothes so anything hidden can be seen. Customs were told that the machine came with models on which the passenger details could be super-imposed on but they did not want that. Now customs men get to gloat over naked images of little children as they walk through the machine. I haven't heard of any images from these machines on the net yet but I bet they are there somewhere, from what the customs men have saved for themselves.

Hi kaneda,

ira wasn't exagerating nor is the shoe scanning limited to Atlanta. It was more or less standard practice in virtually ALL U.S. airports for several years and has only recently been relaxed. I used to fly weekly for work and the the only airport that didn't enforce the shoe removal rule consistently was Springfield, Missouri. Every other one of the dozens I flew in and out of made everyone remove their shoes so they could be scanned.

Well, I connected at CDG to an Atlanta flight (Delta) on Oct. 2, and the security was so tight and time consuming that (1) I actually questioned whether traveling was worth it, and (2) they held our flight for 45 minutes for all the people who were stuck in the security process to get through and to our plane.

The connection took nearly 2 hours from touchdown of first plane to boarding second plane. And, yes, every passenger at CDG had to remove shoes for screening.

CDG was considerably easier than Dallar/Fort Worth, as we were chosen for one of the random, in-depth security searches, complete with pat-downs. Great fun it is not.

We flew CDG to JFK on Oct 19 and had an absolutely lovely time with security -:) -:) First of all... on the way over JFK no longer cares about cuticle scissors. Well..The French still do.I forgot and had them in my carry on and had to dig thru and unload all to fiind them. I was fit to be tied but eventually ended up laughing with the screener. Not so funny was my husband's experience. He's 80 with a pacemaker. Guy at security had trouble with the ID card provided by the manufacturer. My husband offered to take off his shirt to show the implant... but no... I had to retrieve my carry on that had already been checked thru and pull out the information I carry for doctors' reference if ever needed. Lots of security is crazy but I found that just nuts. My husband with his fragile physique and Brooks Brs. clothes looks as much like a terrorist as
Prince Philip. We were flying Bus Class but boarding was underway by the time we were thru security ( and the buses, etc., etc.)

Ah, the Oplan Bojinka entry on Wikipedia? I happen to know a little about that, in fact, I posted about it here (with Wikipedia cite) this past August, when the British bomb plot was made public.

I can assure you that the Wikipedia entry on the Bojinka plot is not only accurate, but is taken directly from the transcripts of the Ramzi Youssef trial in New York-Ramzi Youssef was the mastermind of Bojinka, and Bojinka, if you read the 9/11 Report, inspired the 9/11 hijackers in part to carry out the multiple bombing of US airliners-where the Bojinka plot was fortuitously disrupted, the 9/11 plot was not.

The details that are in the Bojinka entry do not even come close to giving all the chilling details-but there is enough there to make one take a deep breath and sigh of relief that it did not come to fruition (however, the Bojinka plot WOULD have been carried out by the British bombers whose conspiracy to attack civil aviation, yet again, was disrupted this past August!)

Liquid explosives used to blow up an aircraft? Yes. Ramzi Youssef had already brought the components of a bomb on board Phillipine Airways Flight 434, in 1994, assembled it in the rear lav, the bomb was placed under a seat, it went off, tearing a huge hole in the fusillage-one person dead, 10 injured, the captain heroically bringing the rest of the pax and crew down safely. That was Youssef's "test" flight for Operation Bojinka-how much explosive to use to bring down an aircraft.

A variation of the liquid explosives is the shoe bomb explosive which Richard C. Reid aka the "shoe bomber" had on American Airlines Flt. 63 from Paris to Miami. What is not generally known is that he had an accomplice with a virtually identical set of shoe bombs, who, at the last minute, decided HE didn't want to die, wasn't ready to become a martyr (but didn't give a damn about the human lives on board the a/c) so he backed out.

English, of course. He's doing a lousy 15 years in prison for his shoe bomb "remorse." Had he been apprehended here in the US (he was never in this country-was going to board a NWA flight out of Amsterdam and blow it up) he would have gotten life, without the possibility of
parole. Sajid Badat is his name.

So the moral of this post is, yes, there's a reason why airport security is so oppressive, so odious, so practically unbearable-because the alternative is worse-the public doesn't know, what I know, about other disrupted bomb plots against aviation. It's quite sobering, to say the least.

Rigorous airport/airline security and just as important, crack intelligence work is vital to not just our national security, but the world's as well-because a terrorist bombing of a civil aircraft affects the whole world, and has an indelible effect on all governments.

As to the shoe inspections from the US you take off your shoes. Connecting from Paris to Florence I didn't have to remove my shoes. However, from Paris to the States it was like the US with the shoes being inspected (they do offer you socks though) :)

Well, at San Francisco Int'l. they required everyone to take off their shoes.

Oh, and a little follow up to Sajid Badat's story (this must be filed under Ripley's Believe it or Not):

Reid's accomplice shoe-bomber, sentenced to 13-15 years, was allowed in his prison cell to, and I quote, "conduct weekly prayer meetings with other prisoners" in the high security detention center, and "allowed to have an imam visit"

An explosion went off in the prison last year, 2005, and Badat is now in solitary-you see, he got re-nspired, while in prison, so he and his fellow co-conspirators fashioned a BOMB IN THEIR ENGLISH PRISON MADE OF SUGAR AND WEEDKILLER, AVAILABLE ON SITE, AND AVAILABLE TO THE PRISONERS.


Yes, all the prison officials said was that the bomb had not been smuggled in, but had been made "in-house." Very little damage, but then prison officials decided it might be a good idea to do a search.

So much for the "remorse" factor.

This situation sort of gives one an idea as why the world has a real problem with what's been going on in England for the past decade or so.

Again, I agree with GST, except that it has been going on for over 30 years.

>You just need a few men to hold the others back while you open a main door to the aircraft. <

Do you really believe that after Flight 93 the passengers will allow a small group of terrorists to take over a plane?

((I))


((I))

Ira:
As always I must agree with you.
<I would rather leave early and arrive at my destination late, than not to arrive at all>
Well said my dear! Well said!!

I personally arrive at my airports 3-5 hours before schedule on International flights. I never have a problem finding relaxing things to do to past time nor does my blood pressure SKYROCKET when delays occur. (OK slightly elevated if I think I will miss a connecting flight, thank 'God it has never happened).

My only words of advise to those who can't handle being inconvenienced:
Don't Go!

I actually feel much safer flying through/to French airports than US airports because of this security issue. It seems that they take security very seriously in France (and I am sure other nations as well) but at home here in the US I dont' feel the same sense of concern. Maybe because some don't want to be inconvenienced???
Returning from CDG in June our passports were checked 4 separate times at 4 diferent checkpoints and the intensive search in our carry ons was very time consuming but when I got to the plane I felt secure that the job had been done and I would get home safely. I had planned on doing some last minute duty free shopping since I got to the airport so early but it was not early enough. Oh well, part of the deal when you travel and again I got home safely.

It's nice to have confidence in airport security. Bruce Schneier's weblog:

December 20, 2004
How Not to Test Airport Security


If this were fiction, no one would believe it. From MSNBC:

Four days after police at Charles de Gaulle Airport slipped some plastic explosives into a random passenger’s bag as part of an exercise for sniffer dogs, it is still missing -- and authorities are stumped and embarrassed.
It's perfectly reasonable to plant an explosive-filled suitcase in an airport in order to test security. It is not okay to plant it in someone's bag without his knowledge and permission. (The explosive residue could remain on the suitcase long after the test, and might be picked up by one of those trace mass spectrometers that detects the chemical residue associated with bombs.) But if you are going to plant plastic explosives in the suitcase of some innocent passenger, shouldn't you at least write down which suitcase it was?

Similar situation here in Newark. See BBC article
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4101201.stm

Is the security check only bad if you're heading to the US and not elsewhere? It should be uniform across the board, or I guess most people only had that experience?

* Do you need to go thru security again if you're connecting to a different airline at CDG? I'll be flying Air France from Asia to Paris. And then switch to Continental to fly to the US. Do I have to go thru security again? Hope not.

Hi JC,

More than likely you will, if you are switching carriers.

((I))

Kaneda, that was nearly 2 years ago.

Yes, it is possible to sneak things through security.

It will always be possible to sneak things through security.

Will it be possible to destroy or hijack a plane with it? It is conceivable, but not very likely.

((I))

JC, you will go through security again and possibly again before you board your flight. It is more strict on flights to the US (and to the UK too I think).

We flew Air France from Florence and connected at CDG to the States. Between terminals there was a general security check and at the gate (before you take the shuttle bus to your plane) you may be stopped for another search at random.

Question: How has the experience been for anyone travelling out of CDG with USAir? I'm visiting Paris over my Thanksgiving holiday on USAir and am curious.

I concur with Lori. Flew back from CDG to Dallas on Oct. 19. Lost track how many times I went through security. At the last check they made me throw away my FDS personal feminine spray!

I had never been to Paris previously, but when I landed at beginning of trip I was reminded of the airport in Mexico City and was really "shocked & amazed" since Paris is such a civilized place.

But my understanding is that CDG is very very old and they do not have enough gates to handle all the flights, thus the shuttle to the plane. Oh yes, that was like the 3rd shuttle of the day.

Don't get me started!

My advice is to stay communicating with your fellow travelers. I was able to figure out quite a bit just by chatting people up.