Graeme Lay: A red alert in these troubled times

Being directed into a small room where a man and woman wearing rubber gloves await is no way to start a holiday. Photo / Thinkstock

Opinion

Since 9/11, flying has become a tedious ordeal - made even worse if your boarding pass is circled in felt pen.

The woman at the international check-in counter could not have been more helpful. She ensured that my luggage label was attached firmly to my suitcase, checked my boarding pass after it was printed, then pointed: "The bag drop's over there."

Then, using a red felt pen, she drew a circle around my seat number on the boarding pass. An upgrade? I wondered hopefully. Bag dropped, I put the boarding pass away and took the escalator up to the departure area.

Electronic passports speed things up, but there's still the tedium of the queue, the photograph and the cabin bag examination. I'm photographed and my small backpack is x-rayed. Since all it contains is a copy of South Sea Vagabonds, The Listener and a toilet bag containing a toothbrush, it's cleared. But as the security check's being made, I can't help recalling what started all this fuss.

September 11, 2001.

At the time of that dreadful event, I thought, and more than one commentator remarked: "This will change everything".

It did, but far more so than I anticipated. Who would have predicted that on this side of the world, far from the murderous jihadists, we would all be subjected to bag searches and x-rays, even if only flying from Auckland to Wellington?

Emerging from the search zone, I also wonder what's done with all those passenger photographs. Do they put them in an airport album? Forward them to the GCSB? The FBI?

It's a relief to be free to have a coffee and browse the duty-free shops. We're called to the departure gate. Again I queue for a passport and boarding pass check. When I hand my documents over a woman at the desk sees the red circle and frowns.

"You've been selected for a random security check," she says. "Come this way."

She goes over to a door, opens it and says, "Here's the next one."

I enter a long narrow room. A middle-aged man and woman are in the room. They don't have uniforms, but both wear rubber gloves and both are unsmiling. On a table there's some sort of machine and a monitor. Two other passengers have been selected, a pleasant-looking woman in her 40s and a man of about 65. Both are looking bemused, as I suppose I am.

The man with rubber gloves says to me, "I'm going to take a swab." He takes a piece of tissue. "Undo your belt buckle and hold out your hands."

He swabs both palms, and inside the belt buckle. He's very serious. The woman stands behind him, also very serious, watching closely. Swabs taken, he hands the piece of tissue to her. She slips it into a slot beside the monitor. Seconds later, a red strip appears on the screen. The man frowns. "Positive," he pronounces.

"What's that mean?"

"You've been in contact with explosives."

"No I haven't."

The man and woman exchange knowing looks.

The other male passenger is now swabbed. Hands, belt buckle. Red strip on the screen. He's positive too. Then they do the woman. Hers comes out green. "You can go," they tell her. As she leaves she smiles sympathetically at us.

The inspector gives me a hard look. "What sort of explosives have you been in contact with?"

Now I'm becoming annoyed. This is absurd. I want to get out of here. "I filled the lawnmower yesterday," I suggest. "It might be petrol."

He grunts. "I'll take another swab. Of both of you." He does so and hands the sample to the woman. I say to the other passenger, "Are you off to the USA too?" He nods, philosophically.

"What do you do?" I ask.

"I'm a 747 captain," he replies. "Going on holiday."

Both our swabs are again positive. This is now serious. The man picks up a phone and says to someone, "Hold the luggage on flight NZ10."

"I think," I tell swabman, "that you ought to get a new machine."

The pilot says, "I've flown to the States hundreds of times. Anything can set those things off."

The man's still on the phone. "Bring up a dog," he says, grimly.

A shaggy Alsatian dog appears with its handler. The man puts my pack on the floor. The dog sniffs it, then looks away with indifference. Nothing there. Normally I don't like big dogs, but this one I like.

"You can go," the man announces, without a hint of a smile.

The war against terrorism goes on. We must all be alert, we must all be vigilant, we must take every precaution. Above all, we must watch out for airline employees who draw a red circle on our boarding passes.

Graeme Lay is an Auckland writer.

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