"At airports, booze causes headaches"

Sunday, March 11, 2007

At airports, booze causes headaches 
By Thomas Frank
USA TODAY


Bill Roe travels smart - except for that day in January at New Zealand's
Auckland International Airport. That's when he tried to carry 15 cans of
beer through security on his way home to Bellingham, Wash.

A screener confiscated the Tui beer because it violated security rules, and
Roe says he literally slapped himself on the head. "I should have known,"
says Roe, 56, who flies 100,000 miles a year as president of USA Track and
Field. "I'm usually one of the quickest people going through the screening
process." 

Whether it be abroad or in the USA, the 7-month-old restrictions on carrying
liquids on airplanes continue to flummox travelers. The restrictions started
in the USA in August out of fear of terrorists blowing up planes with liquid
explosives and have been adopted by many countries, including those in the
European Union.

At Miami International Airport, the Transportation Security Administration
(TSA) recently pleaded for help dealing with the 1,100 pounds of bottled
items that passengers give up each week at checkpoints, airport security
director Lauren Stover says. The agency doesn't track the total number of
bottles seized.

Stover has urged travel and tour companies to notify passengers that they
can't carry bottles of alcohol and perfume through checkpoints, but "there
just doesn't seem to be much reduction in the quantity of these items."

Prohibited items at checkpoints can cost taxpayers millions of dollars. The
TSA became so overwhelmed that in September it signed a five-year, $39
million contract with Science Applications International Corp. to dispose of
hazardous materials left at checkpoints, such as lighters and liquor.

In 2006, the TSA screened 700 million passengers and intercepted 13.7
million knives, lighters, filled bottles and other potentially dangerous
items. That's 37,500 items a day.

"It slows down screening," says Greg Meyer, a spokesman for Fort
Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport in Florida. "Every time, it has
to be explained to the passenger why" something is barred from airplane
cabins.

Travelers are sometimes slow to adapt to new security rules. 

When the TSA banned lighters from airplane cabins in April 2005 following a
congressional mandate, the agency thought passengers would stop bringing
lighters through checkpoints. They didn't.

The lighter ban resulted in a quadrupling of the amount of hazardous
material intercepted at U.S. checkpoints. Hazardous materials are stored at
secure sites off airport property until a contractor picks them up.

Last June, TSA Administrator Kip Hawley urged Congress to lift the lighter
ban so screeners could focus on what he called more serious threats. That
effort faded in August after authorities in Britain said they had disrupted
a plot by terrorists to bomb U.S.-bound airplanes with liquid explosives.

The TSA now restricts passengers to carrying about six or seven 3-ounce
bottles of liquids in carry-on bags. Larger containers and many other items
barred from plane cabins can be packed in checked luggage, except flammables
and potentially harmful chemicals such as bleach and spray paint.

Even packing such items in checked bags has risks. Last summer, Paula
McCombie was flying home to Chicago from France and packed a $25 bottle of
liquor. When she landed at O'Hare International Airport, McCombie found her
suitcase ripped, the bottle cracked and her clothes soaked with liquor.

McCombie, 56, says she will never pack another bottle of anything: "It's not
worth the cleaning bills" for clothes.

Airport officials in Miami are focused on airline and cruise-ship passengers
arriving with liquor and perfume they bought overseas. Stover wants Customs
officers to tell those people they must pack the bottles in checked luggage
if they're boarding a domestic flight.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Zachary Mann in Miami says
officers don't check the bags of many of the 20,000 travelers arriving each
day. "It's impossible to physically examine everyone." 

Duty-free store clerks also explain the policy to customers - or try to.

Deann Sullivan was in the Grand Cayman airport duty-free shop in February
and saw a clerk telling an elderly couple they would have to pack liquor in
their checked bags when they went to their connecting flight in Fort
Lauderdale.

"The cashier wasn't able to phrase it right," says Sullivan, who explained
the policy to the couple herself. "They didn't get it when the clerk told
them."

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