"Gary Boettcher, a pilot and president of the Coalition for Airline Pilots Association, a trade group that closely tracks security issues, said he constantly sees people drinking from illicit bottles of water or putting on lip gloss when he walks through the passenger cabin. Most of the time, he said, it doesn't bother him.

"They are just doing their routines like they always did," Boettcher said. "An old woman drinking a bottle of water doesn't concern me. . . . The whole screening process is a facade to make the public feel safe, to show that the government is doing something."