The ins and outs of Customs at Cork Airport
Guiltily slinking through arrivals, I will do my best ‘law-abiding citizen walk’ past the watchful eyes of customs officers. “Good communications skills are important for any customs official. We would be the first person, in uniform, passengers will meet coming off a plane,” says Joe Martin Sullivan, customs enforcement manager at Cork Airport. “They may be disgruntled about a delayed flight, travel plans that went wrong, or simply weary after a long day — there is always an element of stress involved. People will, generally, be slightly nervous about encountering someone in uniform, and, in that regard, an understanding of human behaviour would be important in the job.”
The ability to ‘read’ a face is experience, as is dealing with humanity: “In general, when we stop someone, it is part of a larger picture, where we work closely with our customs colleagues in other countries,” he says. “But, certainly, there is an instinctual aspect to the job, seeing someone, for instance, who might be dressed wrongly on a particular flight, or behaving in a certain manner that would trigger the attention. The average person pulled aside for a routine luggage inspection is a very small part of what we do.”
