The British are used to star ratings for all kinds of stuff, and I don’t mean just on Amazon or TripAdvisor. Local councils are awarded star ratings for their performance, stats are given about doctors’ surgeries, and schools are rated in all kinds of ways. The population behaves according to compare and contrast, that health, council services or education are not absolutes.

So why therefore does the UK government talk as if airport security is an absolute?

It could of course be to do with the fact that the very distant notion of dying in a plane downed by a terrorist is a scary one, but security too is relative, surely evidenced by the fact that BAA has announced that full body scanners will be rolled out gradually, starting with Heathrow (7th paragraph here), the UK airport with the highest number of transatlantic flights.

So how about security star ratings for airports? A standard level of security guaranteed, but beyond that airports that offer additional levels for an additional cost to the airlines that chose to use a particular terminal or airport? “We’re London’s safest airport, we have full body scanners” on LHR adverts in the future? The idea came to me in discussions on a previous post.

And before anyone has a go at me for this: think of all the places you’ve flown from where security checks have been really quite poor. And I bet you still flew. Probably with a laptop in your hand luggage as well.