UK airport introduces flights without security checks

While the world is up in arms about Donald Trump's Muslim travel ban, a small airport is going to the other extreme and axing security checks altogether.

For the first time in 50 years, passengers breezed through a British airport and onto the plane without having to go through any screening process or baggage control.

On January 30, travellers flying from Scotland's Campbelton Airport to Glasgow were simply required to make an oral declaration that they didn't have any banned items in their luggage.

Loganair flight 6844 departed the small airport in the south-west with 15 passengers on board, The Independent reported. However, passengers taking connecting flights out of Glasgow had to be screened upon landing. 

The move to reduce security screening has been approved by the Department for Transport and the Civil Aviation Authority.

"Everyone knows each other very well. And the vast majority of customers are using it as purely a local 'bus service'," Loganair's managing director, Jonathan Hinkles said.

A leading aviation expert agreed with Hinkles, saying that authorities can always add further checks if they are concerned.

"Screening does not have to be performed by examinations by X-ray systems. Where better to perform behavioural analysis than in a community where the travellers are known and where baseline behaviour is easy to identify?"

Personal searches and bag screening came into effect when Britain signed the United Nations' Hague Hijacking Convention in 1970.

Critics say reducing security checks will increase the likelihood of terrorist attacks.

"Even with planes the size of these, which are very small, when they're flying over urban areas, when they're flying over oil depots, the size doesn't particularly matter," David Avery, who is part of a union opposing the move, said.

Prospect union also argues that the public should have been consulted before the move.