0 min left
TSA to Passengers: Abandon Your Snacks
Ryan Boyd March 30, 2018
The Transportation Security Administration has begun posting signs asking flyers to ditch their snacks before beginning the screening process, as well as verbally encouraging flyers to throw food away, although this remains a suggestion instead of a hard-and-fast rule.
According to the TSA, security scanners that search for organic compounds consistent with explosives sometimes falsely flag passengers’ food, which takes time for security agents to examine by hand.
To read more on this story, go to The Mercury News.
[Photo: Shutterstock]
I'm usually the first one to defend the TSA, as I see a monster bureaucratic organization that employs people with no other sources of income. I think most agents are "just doing their jobs". But ,I do not defend TSA governance at all. They could have come up with far better methods of screening travellers in all these years, but we're still at the primitive stage of liquids/creams/gels and footware. I understand the concern about metal on your body, about electronics ... but FOOD, for cryin' out loud, that's just crazy. It's just such an obvious control measure to force passengers to pay for nasty airline food ... very hard to defend such a bone-head idea.
Not any different from the stadiums that banned coolers at rock concerts a couple of decades ago because the "ice kills the grass"......yeah right, if anything, in California---where there is a drought----would benefit by having that melted ice to feed the grass at the stadiums.
Riiiiight. This would have NOTHING AT ALL to do with airport vendors wanting to sell more of their extortionately priced items, now, would it?
TLV security is top notch and they do not inconvenience most travelers with their thorough but polite checking of passengers, as others above have noted. If they did to you as you wrote, which is not what happens to 90% of the passengers, then you must have somehow triggered their concerns, a small fact you have omitted. As for the three hour pre-flight arrival, try flying internationally out of JFK, especially during "rush hour" flights. Three hours is the norm here.
I cannot believe that those praising the El Al model have ever flown out of Tel Aviv. You must arrive at the airport at least 3 hours before your flight. I had to completely empty my suitcase, which contained nothing except clothing. They ran every article of clothing through the x-ray machine and then ran my empty suitcase through it for good measure. You want THAT model?!