The holiday travel season is just around the corner, and you can help yourself avoid those anxiety-inducing delays at the airport. Sure, you can’t control the weather or airline issues, but you can avoid common mistakes to get through any security checkpoint lines.
Lisa Farbstein, with the Transportation Security Administration says one tip is remembering the rules about beverages.
“Finish that beverage before you get to the checkpoint,” Farbstein said. You cannot bring bottles of water, energy drinks, juice, coffee, soda or any filled and insulated container through a security checkpoint.
Another tip, remember to bring a form of identification to the checkpoint. Farbstein says people also tend to forget to take stuff out of their pockets.
“If you still leave your keys or your mobile phone in your pocket then the body scanner is going to trigger an alarm,” she said, which will lead to the dreaded pat down.
“You know our TSA officers don’t like to give pat downs as much as passengers don’t like to receive them,” says Farbstein.
Weapons of any kind are not allowed through the checkpoint, along with pocket knives and swiss army knives. But if you do need to bring a gun with you, Farbstein says follow these rules.
“It’s unloaded, packed in a locked and hard-sided case, then instead of taking it to the checkpoint you need to take it to your airline check-in counter,” she outline.
Farbstein also reminds passengers that they can bring medications through a security checkpoint, even liquid medication. Just let the TSA officer know that you have liquid medication with you, so it can be screened separately.
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