Air travelers can carry objects like small scissors but expect more thorough pat-downs as security officers go after bombs.
By Associated Press
Published December 3, 2005
WASHINGTON - Airline passengers soon will be allowed to carry small scissors and some sharp tools onto planes, but there will be a trade-off: the prospect of more thorough pat-downs and other extra security checks before they get to the gate.
The changes announced Friday by Transportation Security Administration chief Kip Hawley go into effect Dec. 22 and are aimed at catching terrorists carrying explosives, which the agency considers a greater threat than dangerous objects smuggled into an airplane cabin.
Flight attendants and relatives of some Sept. 11 attack victims strongly oppose the change, saying it will make airliners more vulnerable to terrorist attack.
"They're just inviting trouble," said Marcus Flagg, a cargo pilot whose parents died in the plane that crashed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.
All passengers still will walk through metal detectors and their carry-on bags still will go through an X-ray machine. But under the new plan, more passengers will likely be subjected to secondary screening and pat-downs will include the arms and legs as well as the torso. Now screeners only check the back and abdomen.
Passengers also can expect more randomness at security gates so would-be terrorists won't know for sure what they might see. For example, an airport might require all passengers to remove their shoes one day but not the next. Some passengers may have to show their identification an extra time or have their carry-on bag hand-searched.
"By incorporating unpredictability into our procedures and eliminating low-threat items, we can better focus our efforts on stopping individuals who wish to do us harm," Hawley said.
Passengers at Tampa International Airport had mixed reactions Friday to the new changes.
"I've always thought it was over-the-top to ban little tiny sewing scissors with rounded tips," said Letta Cunningham of Schenectady, N.Y., who flew into Tampa on her way to Sarasota. "Every time I travel (with only carry-on bags), I leave my scissors at home and buy new ones at the other end. I have 17 pairs of little sewing scissors."
But Nate Goldman of Brooklyn Heights, who came in on the same plane, said the idea that someone could carry a six-inch screw driver on board troubled him.
"You got any idea how much damage that could do a person?" he said. "You can carry a six-inch screwdriver but not a four-inch pocket knife? How's that make sense?"
Goldman said the prospect of random searches and more personal searches didn't bother him.
"If it makes it tougher on terrorists, do it," he said.
Other passengers were indifferent to the change.
"If a terrorist's determined enough, he'll find a way," said Frank Gonzalez of Lakeland. "I think some of the rules went too far, like (prohibiting) nail files. But people got used to it. So why not just leave it alone?"
More canine teams also will patrol airports. Hawley said there are now 420 teams of such dogs, 70 percent more than in 2003, at about 80 airports. The TSA also plans to increase the number of walk-through bomb-detection machines from 43 now to 340 by next September, he said.
Airlines and airports generally support the changes, as does the largest pilots' union.
Hawley said screeners - recently renamed "transportation security officers" - spend too much time looking for objects that don't pose much of a risk, slowing security lines.
Since the TSA took over airport screening on Nov. 19, 2002, the agency has confiscated more than 30 million prohibited items from carry-on bags. Hawley said about one-fourth of those were small scissors and tools, which will be taken off the list Dec. 22.
As part of the effort to focus on bombs, Hawley said more than 18,000 screeners have received enhanced explosives detection training. As a result, a screener searching a carry-on bag at St. Louis airport found a bomb detonator in November. The person carrying the device was someone who worked with such items and was not a terrorist, Hawley said.
Some airline passengers said the announcement that scissors and tools would be allowed on planes made no difference.
"It doesn't make me feel less safe," said Mario Ortiz, 32, who had just arrived at Washington Reagan National Airport from Miami for a vacation. "No, because if anybody gets up I'm coming after them."
Passengers' willingness to confront terrorists - along with other post-Sept. 11 security changes such as air marshals, armed pilots and bulletproof cockpit doors - are why the TSA thinks bombs are now a bigger threat.
But flight attendants say more needs to be done to make commercial aviation safe. The flight attendants' unions have been lobbying for mandatory self-defense training and for screening of the cargo that's loaded onto passenger airplanes.
"We are appalled that we are not being listened to by the federal government as they downgrade cabin security standards," said Tommie Hutto-Blake president of American Airlines' flight attendants' union.
Software consultant Sumil Gubidi, 35, who commutes every week between Dallas and Washington, said the changes give him some pause, partly because of the flight attendants' opposition.
"If they feel uncomfortable, unsafe, then it's probably true for everybody," Gubidi said.
Some members of Congress agree.
"We understand we have to plug new loopholes, but that doesn't mean we have to unplug the old ones," said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.
Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., said he would file a bill to preserve the ban on blades in airplane cabins.
"The Bush administration proposal is just asking the next Mohamed Atta to move from box cutters to scissors as the weapon that's used in the passenger cabin of planes," Markey said, referring to the leader of the Sept. 11 hijackers.
--Times staff writer Jean Heller contributed to this report.
