The Greater Moncton International Airport has a problem.

Last week, five golfers checked in with Air Canada traveling to Toronto and then on to Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina. The check-in was quick, friendly and efficient but it was down hill from there. The golf bags could not be accepted by Air Canada for security reasons.

As a result, the Air Canada agent had to walk us down the hall to a lobby inspection table. There, our golf bags were subjected to a strip-search. They were poked and prodded. Clubs were removed from their cocoons. Flashlights were shoved into their innards to reveal god knows what.

To make matters worse, an older gentleman with two plastic boxes full of clothing and personal belongings was inserted into the lineup for golf-bag searches. He was forced to unpack and empty his containers for all passersby to see. After the inspectors examined his belongings, they tried to repack the containers but the contents wouldn’t fit so the poor old guy had to empty them and repack the boxes by himself.

When he finally got everything to fit, the containers needed to be re-sealed. The security folks had nothing but packing tape to offer him for sealer so he had to tie them together like some poor homeless soul stuffing his belongings together for the streets.

This whole episode took 55 minutes from check-in to clearance of the fifth golf-bag. That’s unacceptable. When we asked why the ‘body-search’ was necessary, we were told that new Canadian security regulations required personal inspections of non-conforming baggage like golf-bags.

We wondered aloud why it was that other airports avoided such inspections. We were told that was no longer the case, that now every airport would conduct similar inspections.

We observed that most airports had scanning equipment and/or x-ray machines that made personal inspection unnecessary unless something out-of-the ordinary was spotted in the x-ray image. The answer “we’ve never heard of such equipment.

This is the way all airports are inspecting baggage now”. That’s rubbish. A few hours later, our bags were checked through security in Toronto without a search. On the return trip from Raleigh with major security postings in the airport, our baggage was passed through security scanners in less than a few minutes. No one touched them except the airline clerk who attached baggage tags.

After our baggage inspection saga in Moncton, we moved on to personal security inspection. For this privilege, we were charged a $15 exit tax and asked to remove our shoes, jackets and belts and walk through an x-ray scanner. No problem, that only took a few minutes. How come our golf bags were body-searched?

When we arrived in Toronto, we had to walk about a kilometer to catch a bus to Terminal Two to collect our bags. Once we retrieved our bags, we had to haul them another half block to U.S. Customs & Immigration and then to the re-loading conveyor but without further inspection. The whole process took about five minutes. Once the bags were on their way, we had to go through another personal security scan but no big deal.

It’s interesting to note that Toronto handles forty to fifty times as many passengers as Moncton, albeit through 21/2 terminals, and yet it seems to be able to process its security inspections in less than 10% of the time required in Moncton.

The people who shared our Moncton experience with golf-bag security were livid. Two of them are not from the area and swore never to use the terminal again when traveling with golf clubs. One of them observed that he would tell his friends to avoid Moncton until the Airport finds a way to speed security inspections.

Imagine if the flight had 30 or 40 golfers booked that day. Based on our experience, the flight would have been delayed three or four hours and everyone would have missed their connections in Toronto.

Flying used to be a fun way to travel. It is no more. We pay five or six hundred dollars to be treated like cattle in a second rate movie. We submit to security checks that would embarrass travelers of old. We surrender our dignity to the notion of fear. We accept small, cramped aircraft and multiple hub-changes as the price for saving time.

Maybe New Brunswickers are used to second class air service and accept whatever is thrown at them. When they fly to Toronto or Montreal, planes are parked great distances from the centre of the terminal.

Passengers are deplaned without benefit of weather-protecting jet-ways. Connections take an hour or more. Hey, we’re tough. We can handle it but it’s different when you’re at home. You expect good service. You’re proud of your new airport and you’re embarrassed when it lets you down in front of your friends.

Imagine if you were a tourist from Toronto or New York heading home from a golfing trip in New Brunswick or PEI and were faced with a golf-bag strip-search at the Moncton Airport before heading home. Would you be impressed? Would you leave with a bad taste in your mouth? Would you want to return quickly?

Scanners and x-ray machines are used by international airports to inspect golf bags and special baggage. They do not add delay to the check-in process unless the scans reveal questionable objects in the bags.

If they’re good enough for super-sensitive security operations in U.S. airports, they might be good enough for Moncton. A $15 exit fee justifies state-of-the-art inspection.

If the Moncton Airport persists in its body-search of golf bags, I suspect it could become the laughing stock of international airports.