Which lie will it be today?

The liquids lie?

The shoe lie?

The boarding pass lie?

The Cheap Feels at Happy House lie?

Consistent lies, inconsistent lies. They're still lies, told by an idiot.

400+ airports......same set of procedures.......thousands of people allowed to interpret in their own way. Gee. I wonder why we're inconsistant.

Heck, I find inconsistencies within our 3 ckpts

Is the next post where the people who can't execute the SOP blame management?

Not at all. I was merely trying to point out the fact that with so many different people reading & interpreting the SOP "in their own way", then you're going to have inconsistecies.
Just because you have the same set of procedures for every airport, doesn't mean they will be adhreded to accross the board. Different people have different ways of preceiving the procedures.

First, thank you for not blaming management (that's not to say that there isn't problems within the managerial ranks, I simply don't think this is one of them).

I simply have a hard time accepting that after people go through the SAME training, that there are so many variations executed. Same briefings, same knowledge, same SOP.

I know there are times when some mandates are received at airports at different times, but when the rules are all the same, this is the genesis of a lot of FFer frustration. Especially when we run into a rogue screener, who are the minority.

If management is unaccountable to a great degree and if it is anything but good, then inconsistent outcomes are to be expected from the people whom they are supposed to manage. It didn't help that some DHS/TSA management peddled that inconsistency at US airport screening is a good thing.

Alot of it has to do with the supervisors having the authority to "use their own discretion". I'm not saying that it's a bad thing, but it does cause a lot of inconsistecies. At least at my airport.

I found that at EWR. What one checkpoint supervisor told me wouldn't be acceptable under any circumstances at any time at any checkpoint at any airport sailed right through another checkpoint at the same terminal not five minutes later. This is not planned inconsistency, it is ineptitude. TSA supervisors cover for their underlings without actually listening to customers and thinking for themselves.

This is true in many cases. I also find that quite a few sups have their own agendas.

Here's the great one I encountered at Newark on Friday. The lady in front of me had a cosmetic case filled with the dreaded creams, gels and liquids. They were not in our lovely quart size ziplock baggie. She got through security without a problem, other than having to talk to a TSA agent. So I asked the agent why she was able to get through (since a "gift" from Mastercard consisting of little travel size toiletries had been rejected on a previous flight of mine because of no baggie) Here's the great logic: We're giving the flyer a stern one-time warning during the holiday season to keep the lines shorter. Isn't that just great! Apparently terrorists would never think of traveling during the Christmas season! How much dumber can it get? Either our toothpaste, gels and lotion are dangerous weapons or they're not.

Anticipation far exceeds the actual event

Yet yesterday I saw a screener denying passage to a person that had his toiletries in a small (<1 qt) plastic shopping bag that you get when you buy something at the store. Unacceptable because it wasn't a "zip" bag. At DCA.

I haven't seen any of the inconsistencies at all, but I'm pretty strict in my regimen, so I get through pretty quickly. It should be the front line management's fault if there are inconsistencies. The employees are just following lead. When I go to McDonald's and get a Big Mac, it's the same in every city. The rules, regardless of what people think of them, should be enforced in a uniform way.

That being said, it's another way that the TSA is damned either way. Half of the people on here want individual screeners to use common sense and the other half want them to just follow policy.

"Unacceptable because it wasn't a "zip" bag. At DCA."

While this does seem to be nitpicking, you have to think it through. I've heard so many people complain about the actual regulations without stopping to think why they were made this way.

Quart sized bag (exlcuding the argument about liquids not being a threat): Gives a happy medium between limiting the amount of liquids/gels that a passenger can bring with them and letting travellers bring enough toiletries with them on their carry-on for a short trip or as a contingency against lost/delayed bags.

The clear Zip lock part: The clear bag lets individual screeners quickly verify what is in them, so that they don't have to mess with opening anything up and resealing it. These plastic bags are inexpensive and easily found. The zip part makes them quickly resealable. A shopping bag is not something that is quickly resealable and has the ability to violate the one ounce limit.

Limiting the size of the toiletry to 3 ounces: I so with this was 100mL, but nobody in this country really wants to convert to mertic (would make too much sense), so it's 3 ounces. The TSA wants to limit what people carry on board but let them have individual travel sized toiletries.

Why >3ounce items with only 3 ounces left in them aren't allowed: These items would take increased time to verify them. Basically everyone would be taking normal sized toiletries and everyone's items would have to be manually checked. This would cause a HUGE delay. If it isn't >3 ounces to start with, then it doesn't have to be checked. Again, it would be best if the limit was 100mL, but try explaining to people what a mL is or put up with people going nuts about why it's 3.4 and not 3.

Having the bag outside of your luggage: The rate taking step in going through security is the actual screening itself. That is, the screeners aren't waiting around for people to get things ready to go through the xray machine, it is vice versa. Removing the toiletries allows this work to be done before people go through security and it keeps it away from extending the rate taking step. It also alleviates the need for secondary screening when the TSA people look at the bag through the X-Ray machine.

The point of what they're doing (necessity of liquid limits aside) is to have this process:

Traveller is able to bring a limited amount of travel sized necessities with them. Those on a longer trip, thus needing more toiletries, generally check luggage, so no big deal.

Travel toiletries go in zip lock bag and traveller takes out before screening. No liquids/gels in bag so no secondary, TSA sees bag and knows that overall limits on amount of toiletries haven't been violated and they can pick up bag if needed and see that there is not anything greater than 3 ounces. Traveller picks up zip lock bag after security and puts in the in the carryon.

Doing things in such a way delays the line VERY little. The delays are caused when people leave things in their bag causing a secondary search to be needed, or when people use bags that violate the rules by being larger than one ounce and not easily resealable. The rules seem arbitrary, but they're actually all setup to make things flow quickly.

This may seem elementary to those who fly routinely, but when ma and pa fly for the first time in thirty years, things tend to get messy. I watched at HRL last week while two ERJ's of Marine Corps ROTC students went through screening - these young kids probably had never been on a plane before and were constantly setting off the magnetometer because some metal accoutrement was forgotten.

1) The policy has been 100 ml for a while now. Unlike a clearcut policy on whether 4+ oz saline solution is "medically necessary [for Rx-requiring contacts]" (TSA website implies it is - many screeners say "no"), this one was sent through to station bosses pretty forcefully as an "update" on the 3 oz, and virtually all screeners are aware of it.

2) I realize you said "generally", but I still take exception to your "no big deal" assumption.

Well it's clear to me why you can't see any inconcistencies

When you so freely substitute 1 oz. bag for the actual 1 quart bag; 3 ounces of deadly liquid for the actual 3.4 ounces of deadly liquid; rate taking step for rate determining step;
then it's clear to me that none of the inconsistencies the rest of us see from line to line at the same airport would ever affect your " strict regimen" or interfere with your happy place.