US to allow passengers to carry small knives, baseball bats, golf clubs on planes

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FILE - In this Sept. 26, 2006, file photo, knives of all sizes and types are piled in a box at the State of Georgia Surplus Property Division store in Tucker, Ga., and are just a few of the hundreds of items discarded at the security checkpoints of Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport that will be for sale at the store. Airline passengers will be able to carry small knives, souvenir baseball bats, golf clubs and other sports equipment onto planes beginning in April 2013 under a policy change announced Tuesday, March 5, 2013, by the head of the Transportation Security Administration administrator John Pistole. (AP Photo/Gene Blythe, File)

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WASHINGTON - Airline passengers will be able to carry small knives, souvenir baseball bats, golf clubs and other sports equipment onto planes beginning next month under a policy change announced Tuesday by the head of the U.S. Transportation Security Administration.

The new policy conforms U.S. security standards to international standards, and allows TSA to concentrate its energies on more serious safety threats, the agency said in a statement.

The announcement, made by TSA Administrator John Pistole at an airline industry gathering in New York, drew an immediate outcry from unions representing flight attendants and other airline workers, who said the items are still dangerous in the hands of the wrong passengers.

Transport Workers Union Local 556, which represents more than 10,000 flight attendants at Southwest Airlines, called the new policy "dangerous" and "shortsighted," saying it was designed to make "the lives of TSA staff easier, but not make flights safer."

"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," the union said in a statement.

The policy change was based on a recommendation from an internal TSA working group, which decided the items represented no real danger, David Castelveter, a spokesman for the agency, said.

The presence on flights of gun-carrying pilots travelling as passengers, federal air marshals and airline crew members trained in self-defence provide additional layers of security to protect against misuse of the items, he said.

The new policy permits folding knives with blades that are 2.36 inches (6 centimetres) or less in length and are less than 1/2-inch (1-centimetre) wide. The policy is aimed at allowing passengers to carry pen knives, corkscrews with small blades and other knives.

Passengers also will be allowed to bring onboard as part of their carry-on luggage novelty-sized baseball bats less than 24 inches long, toy plastic bats, billiard cues, ski poles, hockey sticks, lacrosse sticks and two golf clubs, the agency said. The policy goes into effect on April 25.

Security standards adopted by the International Civil Aviation Organization, a U.N. agency, already call for passengers to be able to carry those items. Those standards are non-binding, but many countries follow them.

Box cutters, razor blades and knives that don't fold or that have moulded grip handles will still be prohibited, the TSA said.

There has been a gradual easing of some of the security measures applied to airline passengers after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. In 2005, the TSA changed its policies to allow passengers to carry on airplanes small scissors, knitting needles, tweezers, nail clippers and up to four books of matches. The move came as the agency turned its focus toward keeping explosives off planes, because intelligence officials believed that was the greatest threat to commercial aviation.

And in September 2011, the TSA no longer required children 12 years old and under to remove their shoes at airport checkpoints. The agency recently issued new guidelines for travellers 75 and older so they can avoid removing shoes and light jackets when they go through airport security checkpoints.

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Associated Press writer Eileen Sullivan contributed to this report.

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