AskCy,

Yes, that's the advantage of the body scans. They take about 7 seconds and prevent all that messing. However, some are after metal detectors and still require shoes etc to pass through x-rays and belts off before you get to them. They are a secondary search device.

Darren

Thanks Darren, just been looking through all the airport info and if I read it correctly they are only selecting some passengers to be scanned... I think... (and its only Terminal 2 at MAN)

AskCy,

MAN only have them in T2 at the moment to cover the main transatlantic servises and I've only seen a handful of people being put in to them. The majority of people won't be. It's for people who have set the metal detector off and want a private search or have requested a search if they can't use the metal detectors for medical reasons, if exlosive detection equipment sounds or you've been selected for a random check.

Darren

Thanks thats now answered what I needed to know "don't put that belt on that only just fits in the hoops and is a pain to get in and out of my pants while holding them up with one hand and trying to carry my hand luggage"...

Well we go away in three weeks and due to surgery last year I now have metal screws and anchors in my leg and hip. Could be an interesting time if the detectors bleep on me

I'd be more interested if they don't beep!

Debbie,

It shouldn't be a problem if you let the security officers know. Where you issued with a card to say you've had an operation? If so, you'll just have a manual search or the body scan, it's nothing to worry about.

Darren

I went through one at Las Vegas and it was part of the primary security screening process. I still had to remove my shoes and belt and stick them though the x-ray machine. Still TSA seem to make there own rules up and vary them between airports and even shifts at the same airports.

I have had a stainless steel rod in my spine for 40 years and also now have a metal plate and screws in my ankle. Sometimes the scanner goes off and sometimes it doesn't!

Pippa

Debbie,

It shouldn't be a problem if you let the security officers know. Where you issued with a card to say you've had an operation? If so, you'll just have a manual search or the body scan, it's nothing to worry about.

Darren

Hi Darren,

I have a doctors report that states i have had an operation and seems as I am still on crutches I should hope they may be able to have some kind of idea. thanks for letting me know. I shall let the Security Officers know at Bristol

I now have metal screws and anchors in my leg and hip. Could be an interesting time if the detectors bleep on me

e

I have a four-inch pin in my shoulder and I've never bleeped once!

I had my first body scan at Manchester terminal 1 on the 10th June.

Sanji

When the body scanners were introduced there was some controversey over the scanners violating human rights. This is nonsense the only people who refuse to go through are the ones with something to hide in my opinion. Anything that keeps the airplanes safer is good in my book

airplanes ???? Is this an American view on human rights in the UK? With your logic we should presumably check in all our clothes and travel naked? There was also a fear about health issues which have never been properly explained.

I mean air travel in general not the planes themselves...

what I meant was that the word in English is aeroplane.

It's airplane in American which is why I queried your opinions on UK laws and rights.....

Oh I see, my mistake, my apologies I am from the Uk. My view isn't we should all be travelling naked, but any method put in place to protect passengers is a good one in my opinion. Perhaps saying refusal proves you have something to hide was a little harsh.

Apology accepted!

The issue isn't really the technology, it's the attitude of those involved. This stuff suddenly appeared and as soon as anyone queried how it works the powers-that-be immediately fell back on the "only a terrorist would object" argument. It was left to jobbing journalists to try and explain to the general public (now we are in trouble...) which left a lot of people worried for various reasons. They may be fighting terrorists but it doesn't excuse them from not giving everyone else a proper explanation in a polite manner without resorting to being patronising or bullying.

There's too much covering up official incompetence by using the terrorist argument.

I've got to agree with Steve.
I personally have no problem being scanned or the technology behind the back scatter imaging because I didn't leave it to either some self appointed journalist who has suddenly become an expert and a puppet of the media or the lying pillars of society of those in government, so I did my own research and know that it's not like the conventional x-rays that pass through the organs.
However, I wasn't too alert at 5 am and I wasn't expecting it because we used MAN T1 and I thought Terminal 2 was trying this technology out, and as I walked through the glass door as directed by the illuminated green arrows, the "unit" was there in my face and a matter of a few paces away from the other side of the door.
So, did I get a choice.? IMO No not really because you had to walk through the plates or have your wits about you and be prepared to kick up a big fuss and authority doesn't like being challenged, I recently tried expressing an opinion with HMR&C and the officer came down on me like a ton of bricks, and I had my wrists slapped straight away.

Apologies if I've mentioned this before, but the system is still not secure even with all this technology because my hubby boarded the Monarch flight without being scanned by anyone or anything and I think I know how he did it.
When he walked through the glass door next to mine, instead of walking forward the few paces and passing through the "plates" because there was no airport personnel on the other side of the unit to tell him to stop, face one of the plates and do a double salute, he avoided the unit by taking a few steps to the left and walked by the side of the belt for the hand luggage screening.
He wasn't trying to avoid it, he wasn't aware that it was there and his instinct was to go and collect the hand luggage as it came out the other side of the scanner.

Would that happen again? It's probably one in a million chance of that ever happening again, but it's fact that it did and I don't tell porky pies, and I can only surmise that at 5 am the airport didn't have enough staff on duty stood the other side of the unit to direct him forward instead of him being able to veer off to the left.
Now I know he's no terrorist, but I bet those other passengers who don't know him from Adam would be non-too pleased if they knew.

Sanji