The chairman of British Airways Martin Broughton said there were "quite a number of elements in the security program which are completely redundant and they should be sorted out." He singled out the need for passengers to remove shoes -- implemented after "shoe bomber" Richard Reid hid explosives in his trainers on a trans-Atlantic jet in 2001 -- and remove laptops from bags so they can be screened separately.
Other senior members of Britain's airline industry have joined Broughton in calling for change. Mike Carrivick, chief executive of the Board of Airline Representatives in the U.K. -- an association of more than 80 carriers -- told the BBC that airport security policy had become unnecessarily unwieldy.