Security Checks Hand Baggage Mandatory at UK Airports ?

[AlastairFraser]

Interesting! Of course when you arrive back at your UK airport you have to be taken through customs, so no direct transfers possible without that. Can't go through customs and stay "airside", so going through security (yet) again is necessary. **Same if arriving from Guernsey/Jersey @ Southampton/Liverpool/Gatwick etc)

BIB I thought the runway was to be increased, and that had been put on hold due to local objections; can't see where they would put a "new" airport, but I'm here to be educated!!

Yeah, I thought they were perhaps referring to the new airport terminal and runway extension planned at Alderney.

 

[Butts]

Current picture at Alderney:

There are no x-ray scanners although there are hand held metal detectors. So when you arrive your hold luggage is weighed on "I speak your weight" type scales.

It is then manually searched in your presence and when cleared, taken through to be put on a cart airside

You then wait in the terminal landside, go through a slimline upright metal detector when called, and your minimal (laptop/handbag sized) hand luggage is searched.

Once airside, you are required to go into a portacabin where you watch the flight safety video, after which you remain there or can sit on the bench outside the cabin. You're still in a compound down some steps from the apron, so not exposed. When the flight is ready you walk to the plane (if you have a pet then you also take your dog or cat to the back of the plane yourself and it is loaded into the hold).

Once you arrive into Southampton or Guernsey, there is no direct transfer to the next flight - you have to clear arrivals and reclaim and then recheck your bag into the standard security pathway, to effectively enter the UK and international screened baggage system at that point. The manual checks at Alderney are only valid till you reach the first airport with standard scanners, in other words. This also seems to apply to pilots and crew who I have often seen scanned with metal detectors when they deplane at Guernsey on arrival from Alderney. This seems to mirror the discussion above about HIAL.

As an aside, there is no door or bulkhead into the cockpit on the Aurigny Dornier 228s so you can see the flight deck and pilots throughout. There is now a bulkhead between cargo/hold and the passenger cabin, compared to the BN Trislanders which often had the cargo just contained in cabin but held back by a net, so bags could in theory be accessed.

I first travelled through Alderney in the second half of September 2001 so witnessed first hand the improvised belt and braces security measures that had been introduced a week earlier. Very little has change since, mainly due to the constraints of the terminal. Alderney is likely to acquire a new airport in the next few years. This will mean a transition from the Dornier 228s (19 seats) to ATRs. Alderney's little airport will be missed by many, it's very much like being in a 1950s built primary school prefab.

As an aside, being so small a lot of Ridunians have second jobs, at one stage the chap that searched your bags at the airport also worked as the undertaker.

Sounds pretty excessive compared to Barra or Tiree all those scanners !!

Seriously having been to Jersey, Guernsey and Sark I am aiming to add Alderney to my list.

Is the most cost effective way a Ferry from Jersey as I imagine the Air Fares are pretty high (just for a day trip)

 

[AlastairFraser]

Sounds pretty excessive compared to Barra or Tiree all those scanners !!

Seriously having been to Jersey, Guernsey and Sark I am aiming to add Alderney to my list.

Is the most cost effective way a Ferry from Jersey as I imagine the Air Fares are pretty high (just for a day trip)

The Aurigny fares were around £150 each way from Southampton and £50-60 from Guernsey.
There seems to be a year round ferry from Cherbourg, so perhaps an idea to fly into Rennes and cross there?

 

[Ediswan]

Seriously having been to Jersey, Guernsey and Sark I am aiming to add Alderney to my list.

Is the most cost effective way a Ferry from Jersey as I imagine the Air Fares are pretty high (just for a day trip)

I can't comment on prices, but I believe the ferry connection is with Guernsey rather than Jersey.

 

[hawthorn]

I can't comment on prices, but I believe the ferry connection is with Guernsey rather than Jersey.

Connectivity to Alderney has been a bone of contention for a long time. I am not in the island now having left at the end of 2022 but mostly the "ferries" are 20 seat small cruiser boats from Guernsey. None operate all year round, and at various points they have been out of the water for maintenance during their operating season unexpectedly.

There's currently one company with a scheduled service to Guernsey, another Guernsey based charter operator who often operates a long weekend service from Guernsey (mainly when he comes over to see his girlfriend, he now operates an ex-lifeboat still in RNLI livery as one of his fleet) and a fishing charter from Poole that operates a few services in the summer. Landing in Alderney can be interesting as it involves getting out onto a jetty and then up the steps onto the inner harbour.

The Cherbourg ferry is a proper catamaran paid for by the regional government in France but it is in fact very sparse and sailings are geared toward French daytrippers and are of no practical use for Alderney people wanting to go to France and back as there may be only one or two a month for June, July and August.

Principally the island relies on the Aurigny service which is around 60 quid each way to Guernsey, this is commonly delayed or cancelled due to weather or technical issues on the Dorniers (of which there are only two and sometimes one will fail when the other is already out for maintenance). The Dorniers also get used for medevacs wherein the full aircraft is used and an early morning medevac at, say 9am may mean the whole morning's flights cancelled as it is normal for one aircraft and crew to service the whole Alderney schedule.

Currently there is also a charter airline called Air Alderney based out of the UK which operates Islanders, but has no licence for Scheduled services to Alderney. So it can sometimes be that a combination of aircraft failure, weather and ferry failure leaves the island unconnected for several days. Last year there were disastrous cancellations and a complete lack of any scheduled transport for several days over Easter which hit local businesses very hard.

And there is no direct connection to Jersey any more.

 

[Butts]

Connectivity to Alderney has been a bone of contention for a long time. I am not in the island now having left at the end of 2022 but mostly the "ferries" are 20 seat small cruiser boats from Guernsey. None operate all year round, and at various points they have been out of the water for maintenance during their operating season unexpectedly.

There's currently one company with a scheduled service to Guernsey, another Guernsey based charter operator who often operates a long weekend service from Guernsey (mainly when he comes over to see his girlfriend, he now operates an ex-lifeboat still in RNLI livery as one of his fleet) and a fishing charter from Poole that operates a few services in the summer. Landing in Alderney can be interesting as it involves getting out onto a jetty and then up the steps onto the inner harbour.

The Cherbourg ferry is a proper catamaran paid for by the regional government in France but it is in fact very sparse and sailings are geared toward French daytrippers and are of no practical use for Alderney people wanting to go to France and back as there may be only one or two a month for June, July and August.

Principally the island relies on the Aurigny service which is around 60 quid each way to Guernsey, this is commonly delayed or cancelled due to weather or technical issues on the Dorniers (of which there are only two and sometimes one will fail when the other is already out for maintenance). The Dorniers also get used for medevacs wherein the full aircraft is used and an early morning medevac at, say 9am may mean the whole morning's flights cancelled as it is normal for one aircraft and crew to service the whole Alderney schedule.

Currently there is also a charter airline called Air Alderney based out of the UK which operates Islanders, but has no licence for Scheduled services to Alderney. So it can sometimes be that a combination of aircraft failure, weather and ferry failure leaves the island unconnected for several days. Last year there were disastrous cancellations and a complete lack of any scheduled transport for several days over Easter which hit local businesses very hard.

And there is no direct connection to Jersey any more.

Looks like I may have to take a rain cheque for the time being.

 

[hawthorn]

Looks like I may have to take a rain cheque for the time being.

The airport plan https://alderney.gov.gg/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=173012&p=0 will allow the full Aurigny fleet of ATRs to land, which will enable a bit more inter-operativity, a more ready back-up and also the potential for other operators with similarly sized aircraft to land. One issue with the Dorniers is that the 2 aircraft each have some different parts requirements so keeping a bank of spares became too expensive because a good few parts would need to be duplicated to cover both aircraft. If one was off-use for maintenance, it couldn't automatically be scavenged from for spares to keep the other airborne. A significant component of service disruption last year was the wait for spares to arrive. Previously Aurigny had a larger fleet of Trislanders so there was always a potential spare aircraft. They originally had 3 Dorniers for the route but sold one.