Getting tipsy

The Washington Post harvests some neat travel tips from an airline website but those contributed by their readers were better still. A sampling:

•  Especially for men - carry an (empty) clear ziplock bag in your pocket. When emptying pockets of coins, keys, wallet, cellphones, wrist-watch, rings, etc for the X-ray - dump all into the ziplock bag. Eliminates standing there at other end of the X-ray fishing coins and other small items out of the little provided buckets/bins - just grab your zip-lock bag out of the bucket and off you go. (ed. - I might add, remove your belt before the security checkpoint and stow it in an outer pocket of your carryon or inside your personal bag.)
  

• Don’t assume that other countries follow the U.S. standard for passenger screening, like carrying liquids 4 oz or smaller  (ed. - 3 ounces actually) bottles packaged in ziploc. They chucked mine in the trash in Berlin’s airport, saying they have their own standards for protecting their planes. They also gave every passenger a good frisking, which TSA agents have told me in this country they are politically unable to do…

• Let the people that have the max size allowed carry on bag put their bag in the above bin before you try to squeeze by them in the aisle. If you want to get on the plane before me, get to the airport earlier…My flights are less then an hour, I don’t check bags because once I waited longer for my bag then my entire flight.

 OBOW welcomes any and all reader tips. There is wisdom in a multitude of counselors.

Comments

[Alain]

Assume that other countrie's rules vary acording to their personnel's whims or moods, just as in any country. I took planes in both Frankfurt and Berlin this May 07 and had no questions asked regarding my ziploc bag of bottles and was never frisked. My rule number one, no matter how unpleasant the person is, smile, be helpfull and enthusiastically cooperative. It may not help all the time but I feel it helps in most cases. And a hello in their language always helps.

[Paula S]

I smiled and said bonjour at Montreal and they replied by emptying my suitcase and searching everything!