Carry-On Madness, And the Method Behind It

[question everything]

The Wall Street Journal


THE MIDDLE SEAT
By SCOTT MCCARTNEY

Carry-On Madness, And the Method Behind It
TSA Enforcement of Rules On Liquids Baffles Fliers;
The Toothpaste-Tube Debate
October 31, 2006; Page D1

An airport security screener sat at a Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport checkpoint beside a plastic tub filled with small cans of shaving cream and tiny tubes of toothpaste. Were they contraband items that ran afoul of safety rules? "No, people didn't have quart-size plastic bags," the Transportation Security Administration official said.
Where's Seinfeld when you need him? In a quintessential bureaucratic bedevilment, the TSA allows small bottles and tubes of liquids to be carried aboard airplanes only if they are enclosed in a quart-size, zip-top plastic bag. No gallon bags. No fold-over sandwich bags. Even if you have only one bottle on you, it must be carried in a quart-size, zip-top plastic bag. Screeners confiscate any nonconforming items or send travelers to ticket counters to check luggage.

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To travelers, some of the regulations are bewildering. You can buy a filled water bottle at an airport shop inside security, for example, but you can't carry your own empty water bottle through security and fill it at a water fountain inside security. Mr. Hawley says there's a classified security reason for that related to the characteristics of liquid explosives. In addition, X-ray machines can detect containers, just not what's inside. So getting all containers out of carry-on bags speeds up security screening.

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Water bottles and shampoo containers aren't the only items scrutinized in today's environment. Ann Hanson, a frequent flier from Ann Arbor, Mich., carries asthma inhalers with expensive medicines, and on two recent trips, screeners dropped the inhalers, which Ms. Hanson must put in her mouth when she uses them. One screener "popped off that I shouldn't worry, the floor was clean enough to eat from," she said.

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One change Continental has made to try to help ease the hassle: The airline provides quart-size zip-top bags to customers at its ticket counters (but you have to ask). Southwest Airlines also said it provides quart-size plastic bags at its ticket counters, but American, UAL Corp.'s United Airlines, Delta Air Lines Inc., Northwest Airlines Inc., JetBlue Airways Corp. and Frontier said they don't. Frequent traveler Harold Sogard has felt so sorry for travelers caught by TSA bag men that he has begun carrying extra quart-size bags himself to rescue people before items are confiscated. "Heaven forbid that the TSA actually kept a supply of bags on hand to give to people," he said. TSA's Mr. Hawley said local airport managers around the country are actually moving to supply bags.

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[question everything]

1. A quart-size, zip-top plastic bag

Got it!\