Dangerous necklaces
Just when you think you’ve heard it all about airlines, comes the story of the disallowed pendant.
This week has been particularly tough for air carrier news. US Airways has decided to discontinue snacks to save money. A new survey of US Airways travellers finds many are deciding to stay out of the friendly skies because of problems with security and ridiculous delays.
Having flown on several major airlines recently, I can relate. Most were pretty wonderful, but my experience on one U.S. airline was so horrible, I will never fly with them again. They overbooked and we were delayed about an hour, while they begged for volunteers to take later flights, and then finally had to delete the last three people who registered. And they were quite loud in their disapproval! We boarded the plane amid the screams of one woman with a connecting flight: “I AM GETTING ON THAT PLANE!” It was stressful for all.
Now a Toronto University student was deemed a potential security risk before she boarded a flight out of Kelowna, B.C. because of her pendant in the shape of a gun. It’s just a wee thing, about the size of two fingernails. Even if it were a James Bond-style operable weapon, which it clearly is not, there is no way you could get anything but a toothpick in to pull the trigger! Certainly not even the tiniest pinky would fit. It’s totally ridiculous to consider the thing anything but a piece of jewellery.
Even the student in question doesn’t blame the security guard for being overzealous - she blames a black-and-white system that doesn’t allow airport security to use their own judgment. A five-centimetre silver pendant in the shape of a gun is still a gun and therefore is not allowed on board. There is no provision in the rules for an inoperable little bullet-less adornment. And that’s the dumb part.
The woman has received an official apology from the Canadian Air Transport Authority. But it just makes you wonder what they’ll decide is dangerous next.