12.02.2011

TSA Week in Review: Smooth Travel This Holiday Season – Plus Machetes Too!

I’m back! I’ve been off on vacation, but have no fear, because I’m back in the cockpit and ready to navigate my cubicle through the blogosphere.

The busiest travel time of the year has passed and I have to say the data is impressive. We are pleased to report that screening operations during the Thanksgiving holiday at the nation’s airports went smoothly overall. With over 12.38 million people who traveled this Thanksgiving more than 99 percent of passenger’s screening experience took less than 20 min. We appreciate the partnership of the traveling public to make this a safe holiday travel season.

Machetes were found in two separate incidents at Philadelphia (PHL) and Los Angeles (LAX) with one of the blades measuring 14 ½ inches. I wasn’t aware of any overgrowth at PHL and LAX. Perhaps we should notify the grounds crew?

In a fashion similar to turducken, an inert grenade was found stuffed in a sock that was stuffed in a shoe at Greenville (GSP). Read here and here why even inert grenades at the airport are a problem.

Not counting all of the usual items our officers find, this week they also found stun guns including one disguised as cell phone, brass knuckles, switchblades, a kubaton/knife combo, butterfly knives, firearm components, collapsible batons, throwing stars, a cat’s eye, an asp, a 7â€