More on FedEx: Before I cut my travel bookings by 99% [a practice I began October 29] I carried a lot of camera gear. TSA seemed never to be able to resolve it, despite the tens of millions of people who carry cameras onto aircraft. You'd think they'd know what lenses and shutter buttons look like by now. However, they think it's better to install ineffective imaging gear because its manufacturers funnel millions to our lawmakers - and waste taxpayer money, time, and various other resources, to treat all photographers like criminals.
Photo equipment is also expensive and very breakable, which is one reason I'd be damned before I'd shell out three figures to ship it FedEx when I'd already be paying plenty for an airline ticket which includes a baggage allowance, thank you very much.
Personally, I'm so thoroughly tired of being treated like scum [generally, but also] because I have the audacity! The nerve! To carry a camera & scuba gear on a vacation, that I only have have one scuba trip planned - usually I'd have four or so roundtrips booked this time of year.
the irony is that in all of my travels I have yet to have my rollaboard searched when i have my regs in them despite that they have to look like a device in the case based on how i coil the hoses. Then agian i have carried a steel in my carry-on without so much as a peep.
How recently was this? I get delayed/interrogated/accused/forced to disassemble my entire carryon EVERY time. Again, how hard is it to grasp the fact that hundreds of thousands of people carry scuba gear to island destinations every year? Oh, I know - a better idea is to assume that all of them are terrorists, and flush more taxpayer money down the toilet.
You know what? You guys win. I'll spend my money at home, or somewhere I can drive to. Luckily I'm quite close to Florida, so I don't have to let you make me give up scuba diving.
* Added later...*
You know, I woke up thinking about that last post this morning. It really nails something specific that bugs me about this whole issue...
Which is that the TSA seems not to realize the relationship of its aggressive practices with air travel as a whole. I don't think I'm alone in being angered by what appears to be the utter lack of common sense built into this methodology. People toting cameras and scuba gear to popular vacation destinations are treated as the enemy, and hundreds of millions of dollars are wasted on ineffective technology, while actual FBI field positions are being cut due to lack of funding? What the devil is wrong with this picture?
Also:
Why do you need a brick on airplane. Again, I don't wanna be the PAX who gets his skulled cracked open should your bag come flying out of the overhead during a nasty bought of turbulence or if you drop it while your pulling it out of the bin.
How on earth is it the TSA's business what I want to bring on a vacation somewhere? It's certainly not in TSA's mission statement to enforce carryon weight and composition. Frankly, I resent even the hint of the presumption that any TSO or staffer presumes to tell me what I can and can't carry anywhere I damn well please, without spectacularly good reason.
Here's the real irony: I'm your classic bleeding-heart liberal. I think government in general is a good thing and that unfair business practices ought to be regulated. At the risk of dragging this into OMNI I don't mind telling you I've voted for a Republican maybe two times in my life.
If the TSA is losing the hearts and minds of people like me? I think we're onto something here, folks.