Huffington Post wrote:An 11-year-old boy has managed to sneak on board a flight to Rome from Manchester Airport without a passport or boarding pass.
Liam Corcoran passed through security on his own without being checked, before making his way on to the Jet2.com flight on Tuesday, after he ran away from his mother during a shopping trip at Wythenshawe Civic Centre and made his own way to the airport.
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A number of staff from Manchester Airport and Jet2.com have been suspended while the investigation takes place.
Discuss.
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Well, they don't often ask for the boarding pass stub when you get onto shorter flights in my experience. So not really surprising, though they often ask for the boarding pass just before security. Bizarre lapse that the boarding pass was not asked for before the flight, though, though families are often so disorganized that he probably just slipped through without being noticed.
In the Dispaches investigation of Ryanair, it was revealed that the 25min turnaround meant that staff often truncated the boarding pass check. Would the fact that this is Jet2 - another low-cost airline - have something to do with it?
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Not necessarily. Airlines scan the boarding passes as people go through the gate in order to check each person off the passenger manifest. This is designed to ensure people who should be on the plane witht heir luggage are - see the Lockerbie Bombings where the luggage which contained the explosives were checked through from Malta to New York via Frankfurt and London, however the passenger whose luggae it was never boarded the plane.
The only time when it is easy to notice overloading has occur is when there are too many passengers for the number of seats or an extra passenger is sat in the same seat as an actual one. Adults would be stopped at the boarding pass scan at the gate, but children are much easier to miss as they often don't have their own boarding pass or can pass though "mixed up" with another family. The gate agents should ensure that the right people are on the plane however mistakes are made, plus some people can get through pretty much any system if they have a "tactic" of how to get around current measures, except something high tech e.g. biometric scanner or iris scanning.
I've been out of the country without showing passport, boarding pass or ticket before. I had them all with me, so I didn't really think to say anything - but I went from East Midlands Airport to Venice on a BMI Baby flight without anyone asking for any of those items. I wasn't a seasoned traveller so I didn't think anything of it, I just assumed it would be checked later, would be checked later, maybe later...oh, I'm on a plane.
Tbh I've missed out security at Manchester before, but that was only because we only made check in with about 30 seconds to spare (9 hours to drive to Manchester from Devon rather than the normal 4.5) and we were running through security at T2 (it was early evening so it was deserted) and my dad sarcastically yelled "I bet you've never seen this before." as were were approaching and they waved us through with no checks on us or our hand baggage.
If you were planning on blowing yourself up, would you be dressed for the weather at home or at your destination? I'm sure jeans, jumpers and coats would have been better in the UK, but would have been suspicious as we were travelling to the Maldives...
I always travel in jeans and a hoody and carry shorts in my bag - aircon makes planes cold and it's easier to sleep if you pull a hood over your face. Then nip into the toilets at arrivals, shorts on and you're away.
I disagree. I think it's very cruel and unjustified to blame someone on the innocence of a child. He probably got in trouble for doing such but to 'bill someone' for such is totally silly when no harm has been done. Ok, he hoped on the plane and ended up in Rome and back. But that's not going to cost the company to be fair anything. The planes are still going to fly whether he was on them or not
I'm gonna do the same tonight. Granted, I'm not 11, am not flying from Manchester nor to Rome and I do have a ticket, but otherwise the resemblance is striking
from what i heard he managed to get through the original ticket check by tagging along with another familiy for a few seconds,
according to most news reports he never missed security, (his bag (hand luggage) was xrayed as normal and he walked through the metal detcetors)
as for at the gate one can only assume he tagged along with another family.
if an adult hands over a wadge of boaring cards for a whole familiy its a lot less noticiable if there is one extra kid in the mix, (airline assumes that they are all together, familiy assumes that the extra is with the big familly behind etc)
It would be much much harder for an adult to pull of the same feat
I bet that youngster was having a whale of a time! I am impressed he managed such actually.
