I experienced a similar event leaving Gatwick airport. The behavour of the check in staff was terrible. Following a series of their staf member changing check in desks while we stood in line and swapping like fools, while we lost our place in the queues, as the check in lady moved and eveentually decided to stay put. A young man asked some pertinent questions, in a nice fashion. She was very rude. He requested the lady's staff ref no. she refused. I was behind the gentleman and suggested he use his mobile phone instead for identification. She then refused to let me check in. I stood my ground and said no one else was going to check in before me as it was my turn. She called for a manager who did not arrive and she was forced to eventually check me in.
When we were all boarded they announced that they had an extra passenger on board. They asked the person to identify themself. They roughly checked the baggage in the overhead bins and asked each person 'is this yours'. They did not remove any of the bags, so their checking was inefficient. Eventually they announced they had made a mistake and we took off. I did not feel safe on tht journey. If this is how they check for safety in the baggage then we were lucky no body had addded anything sinister. Browtal