Unions representing flight attendants at American Airlines and
Southwest Airlines reacted angrily Tuesday to a policy change that will
allow passengers to bring small knives, golf clubs and similar items
onto flights.
The Transportation Security Administration said
Tuesday that starting April 25, it would permit small knives, golf
clubs, ski poles, small baseball bats and other items that have been
banned since shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackings that caused
four aircraft to crash.
The revised policy “is a threat to
passengers and affront to flight attendants. This policy was designed to
make the lives of TSA staff easier, but not make flights safer,” said
Stacy K. Martin, president of the Transport Workers Union’s Local 556
that represents Southwest flight attendants.
“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,” she said.
Similarly, the new policy upset the Association
of Professional Flight Attendants, which represents American’s flight
attendants.
“The APFA and our colleagues at other flight attendant
unions have enjoyed a close working relationship with TSA since its
inception. That’s why I’m a little puzzled that such a momentous
decision would be made without consulting us,” APFA president Laura
Glading said.
“In addition to being industry stakeholders, first
responders and Sept. 11th victims, flight attendants are a resource.
Nobody knows what it takes to keep passengers safe better than we do,”
she said.
TSA administrator John Pistole announced the policy
change at a Brooklyn aviation security conference. The TSA said the
change was part of “TSA’s layered approach to security” and is needed
“to align more closely with International Civil Aviation Organization
standards.”
As of April 25, “TSA will allow knives that do not
lock and have blades that are 2.36 inches or 6 centimeters or less in
length and are less than one-half-inch in width, novelty-sized and toy
bats, billiard cues, ski poles, hockey sticks, lacrosse sticks and two
golf clubs as part of their carry-on baggage,” the agency said.
The
policy change “is part of an overall risk-based security approach,
which allows transportation security officers to better focus their
efforts on finding higher-threat items such as explosives,” the TSA
said.
APFA safety and security coordinator Kelly Skyles also
raised the question of where passengers will put the larger items like
golf clubs.
“There’s less space than ever in overhead bins, and on
some particular aircraft safely storing these large items will be
impossible,” Skyles said in the union’s statement.
“Add to that
the cramped confines of an airplane cabin, and you have the potential
for passengers getting hit with these items during boarding and
deplaning. It’s a recipe for disaster.”
Knives and golf clubs on airplanes? Flight attendants don’t like the idea 
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