Officials don't always watch the X-ray machine

Another minute, and I was at the door of the aeroplane I would later board. No-one had stopped to ask me for a passport, or any other identification, or even a ticket.

That experience, which happened to me one day last year, is fairly typical.

I fly in or out of Boston's Logan airport about a dozen times a year, usually using the American Airlines terminal at the heart of the investigation currently under way in Boston.

To anyone used to travelling in Europe, airport security in Boston is remarkably low key.

Most alarming of all was when my only piece of hand luggage was a bullet-proof vest... the security agents just waved me through

People can deposit their bags with airline staff at the kerb side as they get out of their taxi, then be accompanied by friends or family not even flying all the way to the plane door.

The main departure area at Boston's American Airlines terminal has two carry-on baggage X-ray machines and two metal detectors.

They stand very close together and I can remember several occasions when security staff there appeared to have failed to notice me as I strolled on through, though admittedly I have never "bleeped".

This man had been due to board one of the fated planes

Personally, most alarming of all, was the occasion when my only piece of hand luggage was a bullet-proof vest (being carried back to London for a colleague covering a war zone).

I had wondered if the security agents would believe or understand my reason for taking it on board an aeroplane but instead, the security agents just waved me through.

I still wonder what it must have looked like on the X-ray machine.

Fast food wages

Airport security for both American Airlines and United Airlines is provided not by the police or state security officers but by a private security company based in Texas.

It has been reported that their employees could probably earn a similar wage if they worked at a fast food outlet.

Two years ago the authority responsible for Boston's Logan airport and the major airlines were fined a total of $178,000 for at least 136 security violations, which included screeners hired by the airlines failing to spot test items such as pipe-bombs and guns.

Airport officials in Boston say that their security was no worse than at any other airport in the US.

That is all about to change.