US to allow small knives, sports equipment on planes

Washington: Airline passengers will be able to carry small knives, souvenir baseball bats, golf clubs and other sports equipment onto planes beginning next month under a policy change announced by the head of the US Transportation Security Administration.

The new policy conforms US security standards to international standards, and allows TSA to concentrate its energies on more serious safety threats, the agency said in a statement on Tuesday.

The announcement, made by TSA Administrator John Pistole at an airline industry gathering in New York, drew an immediate outcry from unions representing flight attendants and other airline workers, who said the items are still dangerous in the hands of the wrong passengers.

Transport Workers Union Local 556, which represents more than 10,000 flight attendants at Southwest Airlines, called the new policy "dangerous" and "shortsighted," saying it was designed to make "the lives of TSA staff easier, but not make flights safer."

"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," the union said in a statement.

The policy change was based on a recommendation from an internal TSA working group, which decided the items represented no real danger, David Castelveter, a spokesman for the agency, said.

The presence on flights of gun-carrying pilots travelling as passengers, federal air marshals and airline crew members trained in self-defence provide additional layers of security to protect against misuse of the items, he said.

There has been a gradual easing of some of the security measures applied to airline passengers after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. In 2005, the TSA changed its policies to allow passengers to carry on airplanes small scissors, knitting needles, tweezers, nail clippers and up to four books of matches. The move came as the agency turned its focus toward keeping explosives off planes, because intelligence officials believed that was the greatest threat to commercial aviation.