The federal government was scheduled to begin allowing airline passengers to bring small knives, bats, golf clubs, and other sports equipment on planes this week, but the Transportion Security Administration announced on Monday that it would delay the policy change to get more feedback from an advisory committee.
The proposed policy change was not popular even before the Boston Marathon bombings last week focused the country’s attention once more on national security and terrorism issues. Flight attendant unions and federal air marshals opposed the proposal, as did members of Congress.
According to TSA Administrator John Pistole, who proposed the policy change last month, the new policy would allow the agency to concentrate on bigger threats even though, according to reports, the TSA confiscates “about 2,000 small folding knives from passengers every day.”
According to the Associated Press, the “proposed policy would have permitted folding knives with blades that are 2.36 inches (6 centimeters) or less in length and are less than 1/2-inch (1-centimeter) wide. The policy was aimed at allowing passengers to carry pen knives, corkscrews with small blades and other small knives.”
In addition, “passengers also would have been 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.”
Box cutters, razor blades, and knives that do fold or have “molded grip handles” would have still have been banned.
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