Sir, For the brass-neck event of the week, news that some low-cost airlines are considering suing the Government to recover losses incurred as a result of additional airport security measures takes some beating.

If they and similar operators faced up to their environmental and other responsibilities by charging more economic fares, they might well be able to generate additional income to cover extra security costs. I make no mention of the fuel-tax concessions which they and other airlines already enjoy.

Any requests for compensation, in effect further subsidisation, for cut-price airlines should be met with the Government rejoinder that they fly off into the blue yonder.

JAMES H. LONGWORTH
Preston, Lancs

Sir, A friend of mine, on the first day of the airport security crisis, was flying from a UK airport to Dublin. He was instructed to put his laptop into hold luggage and, on arrival, he found that it had been stolen.

What checks are made on airport baggage handlers? If items can be stolen, obviously they can then be taken out of the airport. It strikes me that there are some serious failings throughout the industry in baggage handling.

Baggage staff should have to show what they are bringing into the airport and then show what they are taking out. There could be a serious weak link here.

PETER MARTIN
Swanland, E Yorks

Sir, The challenge of imposing effective security “airside” is different from passenger and baggage screening. Staff vetting and access controls go some way to dealing with it, but with the threat of “sleepers”, coercion and the art of the possible, no one is likely to assert that these alone represent a panacea. If the UK’s security approach is not being adopted abroad then we must ask what is being gained by ever-stricter measures for UK travellers, other than reduced competitiveness and false hope.

Dealing with airport security requires agreement by all involved on precisely what it is that we seek to achieve. While ministers and their servants will tend naturally towards a risk-averse approach, the aviation industry will, through commercial pressure, tend to the opposite. The answer lies in striking the correct balance, given that total prevention of terrorism is unachievable but that the public still wants to fly. But if air travel is to be viable at all, airports cannot, and should not, be turned into fortresses.

I. P. JENKINS
Head of security, Heathrow Airport 2004-April 2006
London W1

Sir, Mr Booth-Davey (letter, Aug 17) might have tried my tactic of some years ago in Los Angeles when a huge female security guard peremptorily requested me to take off my shoes. I responded by saying (with a brazen disregard for veracity) that my age-related infirmities prevented me from bending down and that, therefore, I had a personal valet at home. “Man, you have a valet?” she exclaimed with wide-open eyes, and she promptly knelt down to do the job herself.

SIR BRYAN THWAITES
London W1

Sir, The businessman, like the tourist, can adapt to limited hand luggage. A damaged laptop can be replaced. The historic instruments with which a lot of musicians travel are not so easily found, however, and indeed amount to our European cultural heritage. They can be up to 350 years old, worth tens, frequently hundreds, of thousands of pounds and are indispensable to the players’ livelihood.

Unless a method is found to bring musical instruments into the cabin of aircraft, music touring will be substantially reduced and invaluable cultural exchange lost. The terrorists will indeed have defeated us.

AMBROSE MILLER
Director-general
European Union Chamber Orchestra
Yarnscombe, Devon

Sir, Those who failed to stop a 12-year-old boy boarding a flight should not feel too bad — young boys are cunning creatures.

I am reminded of advice given to the War Office by a land agent 50 years ago, which said: “There is no such thing as a small-boy-proof fence”.

GERALD DUFTY
St Ives, Cornwall

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