TSA to allow airline passengers to board with small knives, pool cues and lacrosse sticks
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It appears that eating utensils—or table knives, at the very least—will remain banned as carry-on items on U.S. airlines flights, under safety rules adopted after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
But small knives will soon be permitted, potentially allowing some passengers to use a pocketknife or penknife, along with the now-standard spork, to dig into airline food, according to the Daily Mail. The newspaper article includes photographic charts illustrating what is, and is not, permitted under the new rules.
Box cutters, which reportedly were used in the Sept. 11, 2011 attacks, are still listed by the TSA as prohibited as of March 5, 2013. Many items that passengers are not permitted to bring on board with them as personal belongings, however, are allowed in checked baggage, as the TSA list reflects.
Certain sporting equipment, such as pool cues and lacrosse sticks, also will now be allowed as carry-ons, according to the Daily Mail.
Flight attendants were not pleased about the new rules, which take effect April 25, saying that even such items falling out of overhead bins can pose a risk, the Los Angeles Times reports.
“While we agree that a passenger wielding a small knife or swinging a golf club or hockey stick poses less of a threat to the pilot locked in the cockpit, these are real threats to passengers and flight attendants in the passenger cabin,” said president Stacy K. Martin of Southwest Airlines flight attendants union TWU Local 556.
