TSA: Plan ahead for trouble-free holiday travel
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- As millions of Americans plan to travel during the holiday season, CNN correspondent Jeanne Meserve asked Transportation Security Administration spokesman Mark Hatfield for some airport security tips.
MESERVE: Holiday travelers -- what should they expect at the nation's airports this year?
HATFIELD: Well, hopefully we'll see a repeat of the success we had over Thanksgiving, which was fairly well-managed wait times and pretty rapid processing of very large numbers of travelers.
MESERVE: Obviously you need the cooperation of travelers. What are you asking them to do?
HATFIELD: Well some of this is starting to sound like the seasonal refrain, but the simplest tips are usually the most effective.
Don't wrap the presents until you get to your destination.
Make sure that you've gone through all of your pockets, all of your bags so that there are no prohibited items that you may have inadvertently had from another purpose in using those garments or bags.
And also be very familiar with what's prohibited and what's not. Our Web site's a great place to go -- tsa.gov
--not only to get travel tips but to refresh yourself on what you can and cannot take on a plane. And in many cases what's not allowed in the aircraft cabin may be legally and safely packed in your checked baggage. So that's a good place to start.
Also there's a lot of travel tips that we get from travelers, like using Ziploc bags for all those items that typically you have in your pockets: change, money clips, cell phones, pagers that kind of thing, so that you have it all in one place. You can toss it in the tray, get it on the other end then reload your pockets the way you would normally have them.
MESERVE: Any changes in procedures that travelers could expect?
HATFIELD: Well if you haven't traveled in the last year or even the last six months there may be a few process changes that will strike you.
Number 1 is that instead of just asking you to remove your outer coat, parkas and raincoats, we're asking all travelers to remove their blazers, sweaters, suit coats so that we can get a good visual inspection of every passenger coming through the magnetometer. It's part of our increased security following the attacks in Russia over the summer when suicide bombers brought down a couple of airplanes.
And that also is what led us to start the pat-down procedures in September. So those are a couple of things that have changed in the last year if you're just a Christmas traveler, New Year's traveler.
And for the most part, it will be a very familiar process. And I think people will see that that same level of high security that we had last year -- when in fact we were at [terrorism alert level] orange -- is very consistent this year.
MESERVE: What is the shoe policy?
HATFIELD: The shoe policy is you don't have to take off your shoes.
The shoe policy is also that if your shoes fit a certain profile, which is typically a heel or sole that's over an inch thick, screeners may ask you to take them off for further inspection.
So, I'm a frequent traveler and I always just pop my loafers off and put them in the bin one way or the other.
MESERVE: Are changes being contemplated in the shoe procedure?
HATFIELD: Well, I think any of the procedures you look at, and you can start from A to Z, we are constantly evaluating -- not only the efficiency -- but the impact on mitigating threats, the impact on customer service of every process we have in place.
And so the shoe piece of this -- which by the way came into effect after the Richard Reid's failed attempt to blow up an airplane using shoe bombs -- is one that we will continually look at -- and not only look at it for its impact on security but its customer service impact.
MESERVE: Do you have any special advice about children? A lot of people travel with children during the holidays.
HATFIELD: Sure. Families traveling with children, it's a great thing to start before you leave the house and just walk the kids through what's going to happen so they're not surprised.
And if the children are younger, make sure they understand that there may be a point at which they're going to have to let go of mom or dad's hand and walk through the metal detector.
All of this advanced preparation is very important. If the kids are older and they have responsibility for packing their own bags now, make sure that they know what a prohibited item is so that they're not putting in scissors or their favorite pocketknife or fireworks as we've seen around holiday times in the past.
So make sure the older kids who are packing their own luggage have a good understanding of what they can and can't take and that the younger kids know what to expect so that they're not frightened or surprised.
MESERVE: In the past there have been directives that have gone out relative to special items, let's say cameras. Are there any items like that this holiday season?
HATFIELD: In general it's what we've looked at in the past. I mean typically what will slow down and cause a screener to take a longer look at the X-ray screen will be bags that contain a lot of electronics or batteries, metal objects.
It's a very difficult job to look at those images and make sure that the bag is clear of any possible threat item, whether it's a weapon or possible components of an explosive device.
So the more that you can either pack those type of items in checked bags or ship them on ahead, it's always advisable. For film, for cameras, we still remind people that the checked baggage, the process that those bags go through for screening, can damage undeveloped photographic film.
So carry that with you in your carry-on or your purse and make sure all of those bags are unlocked if you can. If not, if you need to lock the bag, there are locks approved that TSA screeners have keys for. You can find information about that on our Web site as well.
MESERVE: I was amused to see that one should be careful not to over-pack one's bag.
HATFIELD: You know that is really one of the best tips that we could give people. Over-packing slows the process down and of course it makes it very difficult for the screeners if they have to do a visual inspection. I also point out that it's very important for checked bags and carry-on to put some kind of identifying mark -- especially on laptops. Tape a business card, tape a piece of colored tape to the outside of your laptop.
So many that are very similar in appearance. And as those crowds are going through the checkpoints, it's somewhat of a frenzy to pick up items. And the more you can have visual cues on your personal belongings, the easier it is to retrieve them at the other end.
MESERVE: What's happening to staffing this holiday season? What are you doing to try to guarantee that wait times aren't too long?
HATFIELD: Well our staffing levels have been constant now for the last several months. We got through what was not only a return to pre 9/11 passenger traffic over the summer, but it looks like we set some new records over Thanksgiving.
Expect those record numbers coming back over Christmas. And I think that the way we allocated per airport is working well. We've also got screeners working overtime and forgoing leave at this time of year to take leave at a less-busy time of year.
So we should be fully staffed, up and running and again look for the same kind of success over Christmas and New Year's that we saw over Thanksgiving.
CNN's Mike Ahlers contributed to this report.
