TSA to Allow Knives, Baseball Bats, and Golf Clubs on Planes

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has announced a change in policy, in which flyers will be permitted to carry on small knives, baseball bats, golf clubs, and other sports equipment on board flights.

According to the Washington Post, the new policy will allow folding knives with blades that are 2.36 inches or less in length, and are less than .5 inches wide. Other previously banned sports equipment that will now be permitted includes: novelty-sized baseball bats less than 24-inches long, toy plastic bats, pool cues, ski poles, hockey and lacrosse sticks, and two golf clubs.

Transport Workers Union Local 556 (which represents Southwest Airlines’ flight attendants) released a statement in response to the new rules, calling them, “dangerous and short sighted”, and created to make “the lives of TSA staff easier, but not make flights safer.” They also stated, “While we agree that a passenger wielding a small knife or swinging a golf club or hockey stick poses less of a threat to the pilot locked in the cockpit, these are real threats to passengers and flight attendants in the passenger cabin.”

The new rules will take effect next month.

In addition to potentially causing security issues in-flight, we wonder if these new rules will actually slow down checkpoints, with TSA workers having to verify what types of knives people are carrying, instead of just flagging and tossing any dangerous weapons.

What do you think about the new policy? Tell us in the comments.

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