http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/09/business/airport-liquids-rules-do-not-take-a-holiday.html 2014-12-08 23:15:04 Airport Liquids Rules Do Not Take a Holiday This time of year presents a particular set of problems for travelers, but a federal official says the limits on liquids and gels are still needed. === At an airport international checkpoint in Zurich recently, Leonard S. Berkowitz had a small bottle of shampoo and a tube of toothpaste confiscated before a trip home. “The toothpaste was a little over the size limit, agreed, but I still thought it was a bit of overreaching,” said Mr. Berkowitz, of Boca Raton, Fla. “Anyway, I thought they were going to revise those rules on carrying liquids.” As I Still, Mr. Berkowitz and many other frequent travelers I hear from often express bewilderment about rules on carrying liquids and gels onto airplanes. The vexation increases at the year-end holidays. This is a time when even the most savvy business travelers, normally expert at efficiently navigating The liquids limits can pose problems for holiday travel. Does that container of mom’s famous holiday creamed spinach that she insisted you take home get a pass at security? How about that salsa from Albuquerque, or that pumpkin pie your sister made? What about wrapped gifts? The T.S.A. Given that people need to travel all year long with toiletries and many other sorts of things, including medicines, the liquids limits are, of course, complex to enforce and often confounding to travelers. However, aviation security officials stress that their biggest single fear is a terrorist plot to bomb airplanes using liquid explosives, like the foiled plot in 2006 in which terrorists were said to be planning to use liquid explosives in 500-milliliter soft-drink containers to “There are still some naysayers out there, still some people who say it’s all security theater,” John S. Pistole, the T.S.A. administrator, said of complaints about liquids limits and other restrictions on what can be carried onto a plane. “But those folks just don’t know what the threats are,” he said. “One classified briefing on what the actual threats are would, hopefully, convince them — though some people are never convinced — that these threats are real and the stakes are high.” In fact, the T.S.A. is now using electronic scanners that can identify potentially dangerous nonmetallic explosives, but these are used mainly to screen “ “We have hundreds of bottle-liquid scanners around the country that can scan whether it’s a bottle of perfume or a bottle of liquor or whatever, or if it may be something dangerous,” Mr. Pistole said. “But that’s a time-consuming, inefficient process for the traveler.” Technology companies are working to develop scanners to “allow most, if not all liquids, aerosols and gels to fly again,” Mr. Pistole said. The hitch, he said, is to do this reliably and without creating additional checkpoint delays. One small relaxation in the liquids rules occurred this year at airports in Europe, when the Incidentally, in an annual survey by Travel Leaders Group, a big travel management company, two-thirds of 2,700 fliers said this year they were satisfied in general with airport security. When fliers were asked which measures they would like to see eliminated at T.S.A. checkpoints, “the limits on liquids for carry-ons showed up in the top three for the past two years,” said Steve Loucks, a spokesman. On the other hand, while most of us follow the rules on the amount of liquids in our carry-ons, like Brian Bodensteiner, of Carlsbad, Calif., we also know that the additional requirement to remove those one-quart zipper-lock bags and present them separately for inspection is seldom followed, or enforced, at checkpoints these days. “There’s often a guy there at the checkpoint saying ‘Take it out! Take it out!’ But then they don’t check to see if you do,” Mr. Bodensteiner said. “For at least two years now, I’ve been stopped exactly never” for failing to remove allowable liquids from a carry-on. However, he added, “on those times when I have a Nalgene bottle in my bag, which holds like 32 ounces of water, and I forgot to dump it out, they’ll catch it every time.” This indicates, he suggests, and I agree, that the screeners are using common sense, even while frequently just paying lip service to a rule infrequently enforced about those quart-size zipper-lock bags. And common sense is what we will all be happy to see even more of at the airports next year.