Originally Posted by Bart

I don't know how it's done at other airports, but at SAT, all surrendered liquids, gels and aerosols are disposed by maintenance. We don't touch it, we can be terminated if we keep ANY prohibited item or ANY lost-and-found item.

Recently, a passenger decided to surrender a very expensive bottle of liquor. One of the maintenance people saw the surrendered bottle and commented that he couldn't wait until later in the night (implying that he was going to take that bottle once it was away from the checkpoint). I complained to my supervisor who said that our hands were basically tied, and that once we turned custody of these items over to airport maintenance, there was nothing we could do. I asked if we could catalog the item separately by at least identifying its cost, and he bascially told me that my job was to dispose of banned liquids in the container provided and forget about it.

I smiled my classic evil grin that all supervisors on my shift have come to know and dread.

The maintenance guy came by towards the end of our shift and had this frustrated look on his face. He didn't dare ask what happened to that bottle of liquor, but it was very obvious that he was looking forward to claiming a trophy.

I poured the contents down a toilet and placed the empty bottle in the disposal container. The maintenance guy will probably say that one of us took the bottle home for ourselves.

I will not allow me doing my job, though I may disagree with some of the policies, to become an excuse to steal.