TSA Delays Plan Allowing Small Knives Back on Commercial Planes
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Spencer Platt/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) — Small knives, banned on commercial planes since the 9/11 attacks, will still be prohibited after a huge backlash against a decision by the Transportation Security Administration to allow passengers to carry them again, beginning April 25.
The TSA announced on Monday that it was temporarily scrapping the plan pending more input from the Aviation Security Advisory Committee (ASAC), which represents a wide swath of the aviation community that has come out against allowing knives on planes.
In a statement afterwards, the Coalition of Flight Attendant Unions Remains Resolute cheered the delay, calling the initial decision by the TSA an “ill-advised plan” from the start.
The 90,000-member coalition also has a number of Washington lawmakers lobbying to keep any knives off planes, charging they pose a risk to passengers and crew.
Sara Nelson, International Vice President of the Association of Flight Attendants, is a flight attendant for United Airlines based in Boston. She said her friends were among those killed on Flight 175 on Sept. 11, 2001 and “there is no way that I was going to feel safe if we were allowing small blades back into the aircraft cabin as early as this Thursday.”
Should the TSA lift the prohibition, passengers would be permitted to carry on knives with blades that are 2.36 inches or shorter and less than a half-inch wide, provided the blade is neither fixed nor locks into place.
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