Yesterday, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) announced new changes to the carry-on policy, allowing not only small knives, but also sporting equipment with you on the plane.
The new knife policy will now allow passengers to carry-on pocket style knives, but the blade must be no more than 2.36 inches or 6 cm in length, in addition to the blade being no more than ½ inch in width. Knives with locking blades and/or molded grips are still banned from carry-on luggage. In addition, box cutters are still not permitted.
The sporting equipment now allowed on planes include baseball bats 24 inches or shorter in length or 24 ounces or less. Also included in this change are billiard cues, ski poles, hockey sticks, lacrosse sticks, and golf clubs (limited to two).
Changes take effect April 25, 2013. The whole idea behind the revisions is to bring the TSA requirements into line with the rest of the world, allowing the TSA officials to focus on higher threat items in light of the current budget cuts. I do not think it was coincidence that these revisions came out as soon as money to fund the program was eliminated.
Here is my thoughts on the whole process, and feel free to disagree with me in the comments. Why is there any need to carry a pocket knife with you while on the plane? I can understand you may want to travel with a small knife for the convenience once you are on the ground, but what kind of robust packaging are you going to be opening that would require a sharp object, while on the plane? Pop cans come with a convenient little tab for easy opening. Magazines only require a flick of the finger to turn the page. Have the salted peanut packages lost their ridges to tear open?
Does anyone forget that it was box cutters that outfitted the terrorists on 9/11, and the knives now allowed on board are larger than those that were used? Now we all of a sudden are going to pull back on the rules and allow knives larger than those allowed before?
Or is this an effort to arm the passengers to put everyone on the same playing field should something like 9/11 happen again? Maybe the budget cuts include less air marshals and this is a means of having civilian backup? The whole idea of allowing passengers to carry a pocket knife, regardless of how small, just seems ridiculous because there simply is no need. Place your items in your checked luggage.
Now all of a sudden, my boys juice boxes are more of a threat than knives, as there is no planned changes for the liquid policy. Lets not even go there with the “NO SNOW GLOBES ALLOWED” rule. I mean we would not want one of those to break on board, scattering fake snow and Frosty’s limbs everywhere.
I can not imagine that allowing passengers to carry-on knives and sporting equipment is going to save the government any money, allowing the staff to focus on the more dangerous items. Unless the scanning equipment can measure these items on the screen, you are still going to require me to pull out the items once found, and then measure them, thus wasting more people’s time just like when my kids milk needs to be tested. Where is the common sense?
Then we have the sports equipment. Lets get ready to tee up during take-off, as the additional carry of the ball will be legendary. Seriously? Why do you need to carry on your two golf clubs? Or your billiard cues, ski poles, hockey sticks, or lacrosse sticks? Has anyone noticed the size of the overhead bins? Where exactly are they going to be placed?
I realize the concern over your precious golf clubs getting broken, but they make carrying cases for that to be checked. In addition, who only golfs with two clubs? You are checking the rest of the set, so you might as well do them all.
To me the changes of the TSA seem unwarranted, as there is no need to allow any of it on flights. While I do not like having to deal with the strict requirements of trying to pass through security as the next guy, especially with kids, strollers, and an abundance of sippycups and luggage, now we need to worry about the guy next to us pulling out his souvenir bat when my kid spills his Cheerios.
While I venture to guess the overwhelming majority of flights now allowed to carry these previously restricted items on board will happen without incidence, all it will take is one to be right back to where we started.
Save Money, Travel More!
Source: The Today Show
The whole security theater that is the TSA is ridiculous and does little to keep us safer. 9/11 isn’t going to happen again, there are steal doors. The fact that we give up so many of our rights just because we are getting on a plane makes no sense. Do you ever travel by train/subway, bus, etc. People can do just as much damage with a small knife on one of those as they can a plane, perhaps we should set up TSA security lines at every bus stop and subway station in New York?
Look, I realize 9/11 was terrible but as I said it’s not going to happen again. Therefore we have the threat of a plane being blown up or someone attacking you on a plane. The theater at the airport which wastes a ton of time and money is just not worth protecting against this very very small risk just as we’ve decided it’s not worth it to ruin other methods of travel with theater. If you’re scared of a small knife you should probably avoid all human contact since odds are someone very close to you has a knife at all times.
And just in case you think the TSA actually does anything to prevent something bad from happening:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/2010/12/23/tsa_failure_rate_may_approach_70_247786.html
(note: the TSA will say that this is old data but won’t release newer data)
@John: Excellent points and well said!
The sad thing is that I’m sure that someone in the committees that recommended this rule change honestly believes that the public will see this as making flying easier. Of all the things that I wasn’t allowed to bring on a plane pocket knives are among the last ones I would ask to get back!
How about we keep the banned items rules in place and instead mandate that airlines and security make it easier, cheaper, and safer for us to check our bags? And what if we made security rules consistent from one airport to another?
@Ryan: Yeah, I agree the consistency of the rules would be nice.
Anything TSA has or hasn’t done pales in comparrison to the effectiveness of attitudes and procedures changing re: hijackings post 9/11. This is far more important than even the steel cockpit doors. In the past the flight crew, and the attitude of the general public, was that complying with request of hijackers was the best way to handle the situation. Now, the general public wouldn’t allow five hijackers to reach the cockpit with box cutters. Pilots (even without steel doors) would pull out the crash ax, etc. Their entire procedures were rewritten from the ground up post-9/11.
United Flight 93 was proof of this. Even though the hijacking was in the advanced stages, the passengers were able to thwart the hijackers from reaching their target once their attitudes changed and they realized that these hijackers were different. Further proof – the shoe bomber was stopped by fellow passengers.
So, yeah… I disagree with your assessment that TSA changes are putting us back in danger. The real danger was never box cutters, knives, hockey sticks, toothpaste or snow globes.
@Amy: Great point, in that the public would react more swiftly now knowing the potential outcome.