New horizons in airport stupidity

[redbird]

I flew from Montreal to New York yesterday. Montreal's airport [Dorval for many years, now officially Trudeau, still and forever YUL] is set up so travelers to the U.S. clear U.S. customs and immigration at the Canadian end. After doing so, and going through security, you're in a long corridor with fifteen or so gates, a couple of shops, and three restaurants (counting the Starbucks). We went to the newsstand, figuring we'd get some chewing gum, and a bottle of water to drink while we waited to board the plane (since the current round of "we'll scare and annoy you so the terrorists don't have to" means we couldn't carry it on board).

The woman behind the counter explained that even though they had a cooler full of juice, soda, and bottled water, she couldn't sell it to us, because she was out of cups, and they weren't letting her sell drinks in bottles, she had to pour them into cups for the customers. Airport newsstands don't normally pour drinks of any sort, so they don't stock cups. Another customer had just returned from asking Starbucks for a cup, and she poured most of his bottle of water into the cup, and he drank the rest before walking out of the newsstand. (I don't know if Starbucks charged him for the cup.)

The woman, who thought even less of this idea than we did, told us to complain to our government—she said this was the U.S. government being annoying, not the Canadian.

Now, there's no sane reason to say "we're going to search everything coming past the gates, but you still can't take the pre-inspected bottle of water onto the plane," but even if I stipulate that they're concerned about someone subverting the search procedure, if an airline terminal is in danger from a bottle of water in a random passenger's hands, it's not going to be safe from the same water and same passenger in a cup, let alone from that passenger carrying a cup of coffee that, as the cup notifies us, is hot enough to be potentially dangerous.

Comments

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

Out here on LI at Islip, you're not allowed to leave the little café with a drink, and the newstand has stopped selling bottled water at all. Meanwhile, at Orange County and Midway, one can just finish your drink before boarding the plane.


Heathrow duty-free will not sell alcohol or perfume to US-bound passengers (for planeside delivery, although you can do that at JFK). Of course, at Heathrow, the one carryon you're permitted is smaller than many fannish handbags I've seen.

[ckd]

Just be glad you weren't flying YUL-DCA; that flight gets its own enclosed gate area with an additional security check, and no bathrooms or water fountains inside.

I can see a theoretical "logic" chain for the restriction, though it's still pretty silly: if you managed to sneak a bottle of Magical Bad Liquid past the checkpoint, you could confuse matters by having it be a bottle that matched something sold in the secure area. Which still makes no sense.

[sykii.livejournal.com]

Based on the St*rb*cks kiosk in the lobby of my school, yes, they did charge him for the cup.
Perhaps the new fear is that anyone given a reasonably adequate supply of water will attempt to drown the flight crew?

[calimac.livejournal.com]

Maybe they figure that a bottle could be smuggled on to the plane, but with a cup it's a lot harder.

Because, of course, this isn't about protecting airplanes from the (grotesquely unlikely, anyway) possibility of terrorist attacks by elaborate chemical operations conducted on board. It's about "Bottled liquids! Evil, evil!"

That isn't just an anti-terrorism thing, either. At the same time we have a scare that isn't about protecting people from e. coli. It's about "Spinach! Evil, evil!"

Coffee smuggling ...

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

... last time I flew from Heathrow to Boston and back (before all this liquid scare) I distinctly remember signs at security that banned coffee cups from going through security (hot liquids, bad, plus of course it's difficult to x-ray a starbucks cup without fear it might topple over and either create mess or short out the expensive xray machine ... and it would be a great cover for smuggling something through the scanners, getting the TSA person to hold the cup while you went through the metal detector and then having them pass it around the side to you...

[elynne.livejournal.com]

... what the fuck. Traveling by train from now on kthx! so I can bring my damn bottle of water and my damn CHAPSTICK with me. *grah*

[nnaloh.livejournal.com]

God, I hope this bit of hysterical idiocy gets put to bed before the next time I have to fly to the U.S. I take meds that can have me dangerously dehydrated. As in "choke because I can't produce saliva" dehydrated. When I fly, I need to have water on hand at all times. Wonder if one can get one's doctor to prescribe water?

[aitchellsee.livejournal.com]

I was concerned about dehydration when I flew JetBlue out to Long Beach on my way to Worldcon last month, but was greatly relieved to find that, at least on JetBlue, small bottles of water were easily obtained from the cabin attendants as part of their beverage service and by special request in between "services".

At the Long Beach airport, on my return trip, I purchased a bottle of water from the newstand inside the security section, and the cashier made me take the top off and give it to her before she'd sell me the bottle. Then she handed over the open bottle of water, having disposed of the lid in her wastebox. And, of course, it had to be drunk before boarding.

HLC

[fuzzygabby.livejournal.com]

I flew to Edmonton in late August. I asked a flight attendant if he could fill my empty water bottle, and he said I wasn't even supposed to have brought it on board. So I had to settle for little mini cups of water. 4 during the 2 1/2 hours between Minneapolis and Edmonton.

I'm flying to Japan next week. I'm going to have to be more aggressive. I take many doses of psyllium a day for medicinal reasons. Each dose requires 12 oz of water. This is going to be challenging with a 4 oz cup!

On the other hand, I was able to buy a bottle of water in the Minneapolis airport, I just had to finish it before boarding.