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Comment by nippoo | Hacker News Reader

Gatwick does a similar thing, but has opted to use 'anonymous' face recognition with a whole array of cameras [1]. By all accounts it's worked reasonably well, but this is coming from the manufacturer and/or Gatwick itself, so, to take with a large pinch of salt...

1. https://www.hrsid.com/case-study-gatwick-mflow-passenger-ver...

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I went through security at Gatwick yesterday, and it was mostly good:

- short wait time

- a large dedicated area for transferring items from trays into your bag/pockets

- a whiteboard for leaving comments

- polite and jovial service people

The only bit I didn't like: there were multiple queues, and they looked messy to the extent that you couldn't tell which queue was shortest. Luckily there was no need to worry, as all queues moved quickly.

My experience at SFO a couple of weeks ago was the opposite of all the above.

SFO is terrible. My girlfriend and I were forced to go through it on our way to Taipei in October. Rude and discourteous TSA staff. One even shouted "This is America. You have to take your shoes off!"

FWIW, SFO uses a private contractor to conduct security in lieu of TSA. I've noticed that they do not have the "TSA" shoulder marks on their uniforms that actual TSA have at other airports. Presumably SFO hired them because they were better than TSA in some respect, if that tells you anything. :)

It looks like several airports that were contracting them have since switched to another contractor, though:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covenant_Aviation_Security#For...

And.... yet, 2 flights in the last few years, I explicitly did not have to take off shoes/belts, and the TSA agents were rather annoyed that we didn't somehow intuitively know this.

I've literally flown from LGW a hundred times and they are by far the best UK airport.

Waiting time is consistently short in my experience, staff is polite (and the white boards for feedback are a kind plus... can you honestly imagine this in any TSA-operated airport?).

The only changes I'd make are: add a "quiet" area before the gates and more drinkable water fountains.

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