Scuba Diving club,
Southern California
Sea Sabres
General note on international air line baggage inspection
By Allen Jones
As I live in the general Los
Angeles area, I checked out the International terminal the week before we
left. At that time, the TSA supervisors in both of the terminal bays
told me the same; I could give my locks to the luggage porter who would pass
them on to the inspectors who would attach them after
inspection. (Note: I do not believe this would work in other air
ports which may have the inspection done out of sight or in another
area. In the LA international terminal, the inspection machines and
hand inspection is done on the general floor.)
We
recently flew on Singapore Air. At check in, our baggage was taken
by the porter to a TSA hand inspection area and EVERYTHING in my camera crate
and most of our dive gear/cloths were taken out of the cases, inspected and all
areas swabbed for chemicals. My camera crate is packed like a Rubics
cube to keep everything from rattling around and they could not get it all back
into the crate. After a while, I was allowed to approach, but still
kept about 10' away and give instructions to the inspector on how to get it all
packed. At the end of the hand inspection process I passed my
luggage locks to the TSA inspector who placed them on the luggage. It then went
to the counter for normal check in. Everything was done
professionally and I have no complaints. Some other air lines in the same
terminal were using the large CTX500(?) machines and I saw locks being placed
on after inspection by TSA personnel.
If
you are checking in at an US airport where the inspection process is out of
public accessibility, there is a good chance your luggage, or what is left of
it, would go to the end destination unlocked!
We
also passed in/out full luggage inspections at Denpasar Bali, Kupang Timor, and
Singapore. At these foreign locations, inspections were pre 9/11
normal. At all locations we were able to have our film hand inspected after we
identified that we had a mixture of high speed film. Our film was
out of the boxes and in translucent canisters packed in zip lock
bags. At some locations a quick once-over sufficed while at others
each roll was individually inspected at both ends. All 90 rolls!
Next time I will remove all canisters and try just zip locks.
As
an after thought, if you hand load ammo or have been setting off fire works
don't do it too close to your gear! It could be a very long
explanation!
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Updated September 15, 2003