Navigating Airport Security
No one particularly likes the screening process at the airport, but it's a fact of life. Here are a few tips to make navigating airport security with your scuba diving equipment painless.
It's hard not to catch sight of rolling eyes when you approach the mouse maze of velvet ropes at your neatest airport. The cheese isn't a rewarding snack, but a complex dance requiring deft removal of your shoes while balancing your notebook in one hand, clenching a 1-quart zip-top bag of nonexplosive liquids and gels – each 3 grams of less, of course – in your teeth and trying to unstick three of four of those plastic bins from their nested position at the front of the screening table. The experience can be frazzling for the unprepared – those folks who hold up the line trying to explain that they just bought that mineral water or that family pack of every-shine toothpaste – and annoying for the rest of us who know the rules well enough that we don't try to bend them. For those of you needing a little help sliding through airport security with your scuba diving gear, here are seven useful tips for getting along with most airport securities in the world.
Show your papers
There is usually someone at the beginning of the rope maze checking both Ids and boarding passes. Have these ready when you walk up – for easy access, put them in a back jeans pocket, a front shirt pocket or an outer pocket on your carry-on after you check in – or else step aside while you're looking for them. You can put your ID away after the first checkpoint, but keep your boarding pass handy to show when you walk through the metal detector.
The Liquids Rules
Most of you probably know this one well enough by now, but just in case: There is no better way to raise the ire of your local Airport Security Officer than to improperly pack your liquids, gels and aerosols. Perfume, toothpaste, hand sanitizer, etc. check before with your airline to find out if you can take liquids, how much, and what other rules may apply. Also, beware of duty-free. Yes, you can buy liquids once you pass security, and if you're coming home from a international dive destination, this means you can buy duty-free liquor and take it on the plane. But when you pass through U.S. Customs and Immigration, you'll briefly recover your checked bags, and you'll have to pack any duty-free liquids, gels or aerosols before rechecking those bags and passing through a post-immigration security screening, leaving your liquids at rick of breaking during the domestic leg of your trip.
Pack Right
Shoving everything into an oversized backack and waiting until you get to the front of the line to unzip and whip out items that need separate screening is bound to back things up, inspiring plenty of the aforementioned eye-rolling from the travel-savvy folks pilling up behind you. Use carry-on luggage that lets you pack a notebook and your smaller things in an easily accessible place, pull them out as you near the front of the line and put them in their own plastic bin. Save yourself a hand-wanding by emptying your pockets – and watches and jewelry – into your carry-on ahead of time. When packing a rollerbag-type carry-on, most airport securities recommend layering – a neat layer of clothes, then electronics, then more clothes and the heaviest items on top. If everything is jumbled up, it's hard for inspectors to see what's what, possibly requiring a visual inspection.
Wear the Right Clothing
Yes, taking off your shoes is required in some countries. Just wear comfortable shoes that you can slip off and on, and kick them off at the counter. Of course first look if the person in front of you needed to take its shoes off... If you're wearing a sport coat, bulky sweater or a jacket, those go through the X-ray as well. And avoid wearing clothes that have anything metallic on them.
Know what you can and can't take through security
This list changes, and doesn't always make immediate sense. For example, you cannot bring a keychain pocket-knife, but metal, knitting equipment is allowed. Again check your airline for what can and what cannot...
Don't Talk Back
Few endeavors are as fruitless as arguing with airport security. They are small fish with great power – namely the power to make you miss your flight, or worse, take you aside for a one of their patented 'pat downs.' Be courteous, follow directions and you'll soon pop out the other side with your dignity intact.
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