On the Subject of Airport Security

We have made our way to Utila from Pasco, via six flights.  The flights included delays, bumping into an old friend that we had just shared a table with at a wedding in Richland on the prior evening at a bar in the San Francisco airport , lost luggage in Tegucigalpa, and a very sketchy plane on our last leg from La Ceiba on the Honduran coast to Utila in the Bay Islands.  But what I want to comment on is the security in the Tegucigalpa airport.

When we were in Houston we decided to pick up a bottle of Vodka at the Duty Free.  If you haven’t bought liquor at Duty Free in an airport before, the system is this:  you buy the liquor and the Duty Free shop delivers it to you as you board your plane.  (I guess this is so you won’t drink it while you are in the airport? Leaving you at the mercy of the airport restaurants who are likely to charge you $10 for a watered down drink.) Anyway, I think it is amazing that you are allowed to bring a liter or two liter GLASS bottle of alcohol on a plane, just because you purchased it after you went through security.  All this does is guarantee that there is alcohol in the bottle and it isn’t a bomb.  But I think a few terrorists could do quite well wielding heavy glass bottles of alcohol as a bat, or better yet break the bottle, and use the broken glass bottle as a weapon!

When we arrived in Tegucigalpa, our luggage didn’t arrive with us, so we found a very nice airline representative who helped us fill out a claim form and gave us his cel phone number and personal email, so we could contact him from Utila.  We made our way through customs, with no luggage and nothing to declare, and met David on the other side.  David was relieved to see us, as all the other passengers had already come through in the minutes preceding us. Since we didn’t have any luggage, we weren’t able to put our bottle of vodka in our luggage, and didn’t think about stashing it in David’s bag before we checked in at ticket counter at SOSA, the local airline we were flying to Utila.  As we found our way through the airport to the gates for the local flights, we were confronted with a security check to go through.  There were signs indicating international flight regulations regarding what was prohibited in Carry On bags.  The regulations were the same as the USA, no liquids or gels over 3 ounces, limited to what you can fit in  a quart size Ziploc.  There was a display case with all the items that were prohibited, including pocket knives, scissors, and menacing bottles of shampoo.  We took off our shoes and belts, emptied our pockets, took our laptops out of our bags, and hoisted all our belongings on the conveyor belt leading into the x-ray machine.  Glen placed his travel worn daypack, complete with the bottle of Vodka, in a bin and walked through the metal detector.  The bag made its way through the x-ray machine and out the other side.  If there was any hesitation on the part of the Honduran airport security regarding a huge glass bottle of vodka in our carry-on, it was only momentary.

We happily collected our belongings, vodka and all, and went to find our boarding gate.