2021 was an odd one for travel, with so many COVID-related unknowns throughout the year. But that didn’t stop passengers from bringing along some odd things in their carry-ons and checked baggage.
See the video above for the TSA’s Top Ten Catches of 2021.
This is alarming:
While there are still fewer passengers flying on commercial planes due to the pandemic, there is an uptick in the number of firearms people are bringing with them to U.S. airports.
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) announced this week that so far this year its officers have found a record number of firearms at airport security checkpoints.
As of October 3rd, with three months yets to go in 2021, TSA officers had stopped 4,495 passengers with firearms. That already surpasses the previous year-long record of 4,432 firearms caught throughout all of 2019.
In 2019, TSA found 5 firearms per million passengers. So far this year, TSA discovered 11 firearms in carry-on bags at airport checkpoints per million passengers.
Here are Top 10 airports for firearms discoveries so far this year. Note that the most firearms have been found at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL), and that three Texas airports (DFW, IAH, and DAL) are on this list.
ATL: 391
DFW: 232
IAH: 168
PHX: 147
BNA (Memphis): 115
DEN: 107
FLL: 107
MSY: 90
SLC: 90
DAL: 88
Alarming, right?
If you’re flying to any airport near Washington, D.C. in the days leading up to the inauguration, you’ll have to leave your firearms at home.
Based on the events over the past few weeks in the nation’s capital, Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Frontier, Southwest, Spirit, and United Airlines are imposing a temporary ban on checking firearms.
Additional security measures are being put in place as well.
In most cases, credentialed law enforcement personnel and active-duty military members traveling on orders are exempt from the policies.
A “D.C. Area Firearms Update” on the Delta Air Lines website says:
“To ensure the safety of our customers and employees, customers flying into the Washington, D.C. area (DCA, BWI, IAD and RIC) from January 16 – 23 will not be permitted to transport firearms in their checked bags. As a reminder, firearms are never permitted in carry-ons,“
Alaska Airlines issued a statement outlining its firearms ban, as well as a variety of other safety measures it will put in place beginning January 15.
The airline’s plan includes:
*Increased mask enforcement on the ground and in the air.
* A limit on the number of tickets to be sold to and from the Washington, D.C. area;
*And and a requirement that all passengers traveling to and from the DC metro area stay seated one hour after take-off and one hour before landing .
“We will have a dedicated command center to monitor every phase of the journey – check-in, boarding, taxi, climb, cruise, descent, and arrival – to ensure compliance and allow us to quickly respond to and resolve any incidents,” the airline said in its statement.
Other airlines are doing much the same. Some are banning the sales of alcohol on flights as well.
American Airlines has posted this notice:
The safety of our customers and team members is our top priority. As an additional precautionary measure in advance of the Presidential Inauguration, firearms may not be transported in checked bags on flights into Washington, D.C.-area airports (DCA, IAD and BWI) from January 16 – 23, 2021. Credentialed law enforcement officials and active duty military members traveling on Department of Defense orders will be exempt.
Firearms are never allowed to be brought onboard our planes as a carry-on item.
From Saturday, Jan 16 through Saturday, January 23, United will ban checked firearms on flights to BWI, DCA, Dulles, and Richmond International Airport.
And Southwest is doing the same.
Many airlines are moving their crews out of downtown D.C. hotels and increasing their staffing at the airports. TSA is also beefing up its security measures at airports around the country.
In 2019, airline passengers tried to take hundreds of thousands of prohibited and banned items through airport security checkpoints in the United States.
Transportation Security Administration officers found hatchets, inert grenades, fireworks, firearms (most of them loaded) and so many knives that the TSA doesn’t even keep a count.
Instead, the agency boxes them up, weighs them and hands pallets of knives and other “voluntarily abandoned” property over to state agencies to be sold as surplus property.
TSA officials say passengers who don’t want to leave a banned item behind at the checkpoint have a few options:
If the item is approved for checked baggage, a passenger can put the item in a carry-on bag and go check it in or ask the airline to retrieve an already checked back and put the item in there.
Another option: Airport Mailers and some other companies have kiosks set up near security checkpoints at many airports where travelers may package up items and pay to mail them home.
But it’s not just items on TSA’s “no fly’ list that get left behind at airports.
Each month, TSA also collects and catalogs 90,000 to 100,000 other items that are perfectly legal to travel with, but which are inadvertently left behind at airport checkpoints by harried and distracted travelers.
Those items range from scarves and sunglasses to laptops, smartphones and some odd “How did they forget THAT?” items such as bowling balls, violins, gold teeth and urns and boxes filled with human cremains.
On a post-holiday tour of TSA’s Lost & Found room at Reagan National Airport, we spotted plenty of those items, as well as multiple bags filled with left behind IDs.
We also saw shelves lined with ballcaps, CPAP breathing machines, winter coats, car key fobs that will cost $200 or more to replace, car seats, canes and fully packed carry-on bags.
It’s easy to see how hats and scarves get left behind in the bins, but what about laptops, entire carry-on bags and other essential items?
Besides the “people are in a rush,” factor, TSA spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein has some theories:
“When it comes to laptops, many brands are grey and the same color as the checkpoint bins, so it can be easy to overlook your laptop,” says Feinstein. “Also, if a bin has an advertisement in the bottom, travelers’ eyes may be drawn to the ad and cause them to miss the driver’s license and keys still in the bin.”
The number of bins people use may also contribute to the pile-up in the Lost & Found. If you’ve scattered your stuff across multiple bins (coats here, electronics there, a flat laptop and an ID in another bin), you may overlook items in the last bin as you rush to take your stuff out and stack up the used bins.
The pile of canes?
“It’s not that we have so many miraculous recoveries at TSA checkpoints,” says Farbstein, “I think attendants and family members helping wheelchair users who also have canes often forget to pick up the canes once they’re through the checkpoint.”
Keeping your stuff out of Lost & Found
TSA keeps items left behind at security checkpoints for a minimum of 30 days and posts phone numbers on its website where travelers can contact the Lost & Found department at each airport.
(Keep in mind that airports and airlines will have their own lost and found procedures for things left in the terminals and on airplanes.)
To improve your chances of getting your stuff back – or not losing it in the first place – Farbstein offers these tips:
Help is on the way
Looking forward, as part of a $96.8 million contract awarded last year to Smiths Detection, in 2020 most large and major airports in the United States will be getting computed technology 3D X-ray scanners at the checkpoints. This new machinery will allow travelers to keep their electronics in their carry-on bags and reduce the chance of so many laptops and other gadgets getting left behind.
(My story: “How to avoid leaving stuff behind at the TSA checkpoint” first appeared on CNBC in a slightly different version)
TSA’s Year in Review came out today with the (still somewhat unofficial) final stats on the number of guns TSA officers found in carry-on bags at airport checkpoints last year.
The total for 2018 is a record-setting 4,239 firearms found in carry-on bags at 249 of the more than 400 TSA-controlled airport checkpoints around the country.
That’s up more than 7 percent from the 3,957 firearms TSA officers found in carry-on bags in 2017.
And that averages out to 81.6 firearms a week and 11.6 firearms a day.
The break-down gets more alarming when we look at the stats on the number of guns found to be loaded.
Of the 4,239 firearms found last year, more than 86% (3,656) were loaded (another record) and almost 34% (1,432) of the firearms found had a round chambered.
Why do so many passengers show up at airports with guns?
“I think the biggest reason is that people go buy these things and then completely forget they have them, which is dangerous in its own right,” said aviation security expert Jeff Price, the owner of Leading Edge Strategies, “I imagine when they get the gun, at first they are always aware of it because they feel safer. Then, after a period of time, it works its way to the bottom of the bag and next thing that happens is its discovered at a screening checkpoint.”
Price also suspects that because more people are carrying guns these days and carry those guns in purses and laptops, they are aware they have the guns, “But in the hustle and confusion of preparing for a trip, they forget to take the gun out. “
TSA’s Year in Review also lists the top 10 airports for firearm discoveries in 2018.
Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) the Top 10 list with 298 firearms found. (253 loaded.) That’s an increase of 53 compared to 2017.
ATL also set the record for the airport with the most firearms discovered in one month: In August 2018, 32 firearms were found at ATL checkpoints.
Here’s the rest of TSA’s Top 10 list of airports for firearms discoveries in 2018:
Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW): 219 (193 loaded)
Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX): 129 (120 loaded)
Denver International Airport (DEN): 126 (95 loaded)
Orlando International Airport (MCO): 123 (112 loaded)
George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH): 117 (115 loaded). Some good news here: this is a decrease of 25 compared to 2017.
Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport (FLL): 96 (80 loaded)
Austin-Bergstrom International Airport (AUS): 93 (76 loaded)
Dallas Love Field Airport (DAL): 89 (83 loaded)
Nashville International Airport (BNA): 86 (80 loaded)
In a year when TSA also screened a record number of travelers (813.8 million; a 5.5 percent increase over 2017), the agency’s officers also found a wide variety of prohibited items and ‘artfully concealed’ objects other than firearms in carry-on bags, including inert grenades, a bottle of lighter fluid, fireworks and knife combs.
TSA’s week in review also notes the loss in 2018 of Curtis “Blogger Bob” Burns, the charmingly corny TSA employee who chronicled the agency’s odd finds on the TSA blog, on Twitter and on Instagram. Burns is featured in quirky videos highlighting TSA Top 10 Most Unusual Finds in 2016 and in 2017.
TSA’s Year in Review promises that a video highlighting 2018’s most unusual finds will be released soon.
Courtesy TSA
Readers of the StuckatTheAirport.com blog know that I often cite the TSA’s blog and Instagram accounts, which catalog the firearms and often outrageous items that passengers try to take with them onto planes.
The creative and really funny TSA employee who has been responsible for these social media outlets died recently and I wrote a quick turn post for USA TODAY:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BpIAOSqnTlj/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet
Curtis Robert Burns, the Transportation Security Administration’s surprise social media star, passed away on Friday, October 19 at the age of 48 after a sudden illness.
Known as “Blogger Bob” to followers of the TSA blog and to the more than 950,000 subscribers of TSA’s Instagram account, Burns used what he called his corny, “dad humor” to educate the public about the work of the TSA and the rules regarding what passengers may and may not take with them onto airplanes.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BgZJTRRnk2-/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet
On TSA’s blog, Burns shared a weekly count of the firearms TSA officers found at airport checkpoints and a summary of the knives and other often alarming prohibited items passengers packed in carry-on and checked bags and in their pockets, briefcases and purses.
He also filmed a humorous year-end video countdown of TSA’s Top Ten Most Unusual Finds where his dry wit was charmingly evident.
“His Top 10 items of ridiculous items found at the checkpoint reminded everyone that commonsense isn’t evenly distributed. And what screening officers did isn’t security theater. And if it were, the cast of characters were often those being screened and not doing the screening, as some suggest,” Michael Bilello, a TSA spokesperson noted in a statement announcing Burns’ death.
Thanks to Burns and his wry approach to sharing photos and comments about odd items discovered by TSA officers, TSA’s Instagram account won many honors, including three Webby Awards in 2018 and ranked fourth best by Rolling Stone in 2015.
Here’s Burns giving his Webby Award acceptance speech:
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bi5qk5Bn45Q/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet
During a TSA Facebook live, “Ask Me Anything” episode earlier this year, Burns attributed the success of TSA’s Instagram account in part to the shock value.
“People don’t come to a government Instagram account and expert to see humor,” he said, “And they also don’t expect to see these crazy things that people are trying to bring on a plane.”
His favorite item? The sandwich slicer that someone tried to bring on board, “Just like the ones you see at the deli!”
https://www.instagram.com/p/6Yhy4bF99C/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet
According to an obituary in the Dayton Daily News, Burns was a chemical engineer for the U.S. army during Desert Storm, the father of two daughters and also lead singer and song writer for the “Big in Iowa” band.
Each week the Trasnportation Security Administration reports on the number of firearms its officers find at airport checkpoints.
And each week I get alarmed.
This week is no different.
TSA reports that between May 14 and 20 a total of 101 firearms were found at airport security checkpoints.
Of those 101 firearms, 85 were loaded and 28 had a load chambered.
101 firearms is a lot. But it’s not a record for the TSA, although it is close.
Between February 5 and 11 of this year, TSA found a record 104 firearms at airport checkpoints.
Why do people bring firearms – and loaded firearms- with them to the airport?
TSA says most people caught with a firearm at an airport simply say they ‘forgot’ their firearm was in the bag they’d packed for their trip…
We knew it was coming, but now it is official:
According to the Transportation Security Administration, a record setting 3,957 firearms were found in carry-on bags at checkpoints across the country during 2017.
That’s a 16.7 percent increase (556 more) over the 3,391 firearms found in 2016, an average of 76.1 firearms per week and an average of 10. 8 firearms each day.
Of the firearms found during 2017, 84 percent (3,324) were loaded and 34.8 percent (1,378) had a round chambered.
Firearms were found at 239 airports, with the most in any one month (31) discovered in August at Hartsfield-Jackson Altanta International Airport.
Top 10 Airports For Firearm Discoveries In 2017:
Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL): 245 (222 Loaded)
Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW): 211 (165 Loaded)
George Bush Intercontinental Airport – Houston (IAH): 142 (124 Loaded)
Denver International (DEN): 118 (102 Loaded)
Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX): 115 (109 Loaded)
Tampa International (TPA): 97 (90 Loaded)
Orlando International Airport (MCO): 94 (82 Loaded)
Dallas Love Field (DAL): 93 (81 Loaded)
Nashville International (BNA): 89 (71 Loaded)
Seattle–Tacoma International Airport (SEA): 75 (60 Loaded)
As the busy summer travel season kicks into high gear and tips for travelers roll out from here and there, here’s one helpful piece of advice gun owners should heed: make sure you remove your firearms from purses, pockets and satchels before heading to the airport.
It seems impossible in this era of terrorism alerts and heightened attention to travel safety, but people keep taking their firearms with them to the airport.
Last week TSA officers discovered a record 82 firearms in carry-on bags at airports around the country.
Of those record 82 firearms discovered, 66 were loaded and and 18 had a round chambered
That eclipses the record of 81 firearms found during one week in August 2016 and tied in March 2017.
Most travelers found with firearms in their carry-ons say they simply forgot they had those weapons with them. Others may just be using that excuse to evade serious repercussions when caught
In some states, and under certain circumstances, nothing much happens to travelers found with firearms in their carry-ons; they’re simply told to put their guns elsewhere (Their parked cars, maybe? Or to send them home with a friend?) In some cases, though, travelers bringing firearms to the checkpoint can be arrested and fined up to $11,000.
You’d think air travelers would have gotten the message by now. But evidently not.
The TSA has done its 2016 tally and found that another record has been broken for the number of firearms found in carry-on bags and on passengers at airport checkpoints.
According to TSA’s Year in Review report 3,391 firearms were found during 2016.
That’s 28 percent more than the 2,653 firearms found in 2015.
According to TSA’s report, of the 3,391 firearms found during 2016, 83 percent were loaded and the most firearms – 198 – were found at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.
Top 10 airports for firearms discoveries:
Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL):198
Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW): 192
George Bush Intercontinental Airport – Houston (IAH):128
Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX):101
Denver International (DEN): 98
Orlando International Airport (MCO):86
Nashville International (BNA):80
Tampa International (TPA):79
Austin-Bergstrom International Airport (AUS):78
Salt Lake City International (SLC):75
Beyond firearms, TSA finds lots of other odd things in travelers’ bags.