Tier Point Run to San Jose in Nov 2023: Day 7 – New York JFK to London Heathrow LHR

I discovered something this evening that doesn’t inspire confidence in security procedures at JFK. I don’t know whether it’s just BA flouting the rules or other airlines do it as well. More on that later…

AA were kind enough to arrive at a gate right next to the corridor leading to the tunnel back to the main T8 hub at JFK, so it didn’t take long before I was walking into the Chelsea lounge.

I only had about 30 mins before I would be heading down to Gate 16 for my flight back to Heathrow, so I did some basic admin and made sure I had valid boarding passes for my B2B to Dublin tomorrow.

After heading down to the gate, no one was showing any interest in forming a queue when I got down to the gate, so I did the honours.

I noticed a formal gent I sort of recognised from the lounge, walk 3 guys through the gate area and onto the aircraft. There was a brief exchange with the gate team, but there were no ID checks done on any of the three.

That looked like the three guys bypassed a fundamental security check at the gate. I was quite sure no one would be at risk, but BA needs to consider the impression this gives other passengers.

Perception is reality as I remember someone telling me many years ago.

The formal gent must have been one of the BA reps from the Chelsea lounge. I didn’t leave it there – I followed up twice on this with BA reps, as noted below.

Of course, when Group 0 was called I was the only one that came forward, but I got a big red cross – additional checks were required, which undermines any value in qualifying for Group 0!

What slightly annoyed me is that the gate team called a number of passengers to the gate for document checks, so why wasn’t I called?

As my passport was scanned, I asked why the 3 passengers were not ID checked.

They didn’t know and effectively said they never ask questions when that sort of thing happens.

When I got to the aircraft door, I asked the same question and I was told they were prems.

So that basically suggests that if you qualify as a prem, you can bypass the ID security check? That can’t be right.

They may have been ID checked elsewhere, but why circumvent the process in front of all other passengers?

It’s all about the impression this gives to every other passenger that might be watching.

On into my normal seat 02A and I got my glass of LPGS. I planned to sleep throughout the 6 hour flight back home.

We ended up pushing back late due to a passenger needing to be offloaded.

I was into my bed as early as I could and managed to get about 4 hours kip.

I had breakfast: a smoothie, fruit, full English, two croissant and a pot of tea. Really needed that!

After a short holding over the London area, we arrived into Gate 46.

The train was relatively prompt and my passport scanned correctly at kiosk 14 without any problems.

It seems that someone has changed something! I think that is three successes on the bounce now!

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