On the evening of Christmas day, a Nigerian man flying from Amsterdam to Detroit was apprehended by passengers aboard the flight after he attempted to set off an explosive device. Since then airport security levels have been heightened to neon orange or something of that sort, while extra security measures have been set into place. So what does this all mean? Well if you are flying, especially internationally, make sure you arrive an additional hour early. The charades of airport security are back again with the heightened sense of paranoia that emanates post 9/11 travel.

The circus show includes being asked what travel items are in your luggage at least a dozen times. Luckily, when I went through to get my boarding pass the travel agent had sense of humor. He loved the fact that one of my suitcases was filled with Paneton.  I had a friend (if you can call an orangutan a friend) who traveled right after 9/11 and had to step on a ‘special box’ that was to detect if you had a bomb in your shoe. He accidentally knocked over the special detection box only to find out it was a hollowed out spray-painted metal box. Hopefully some of these new TSA regulations are a little more effective this time around.

I did not encounter any new fully body scanners but had to go through an additional check before boarding the plane. They split you up before boarding the plane men on one side, women on the other (species doesn’t matter) and they patted us down, which for those of us who have fur and no clothes I didn’t see the purpose. Then we had to open up our carry on items again before finally being allowed to board the plane. Overall it was more of a slight time inconvenience than any real beefed-up security measures.

Once back in the states I went through customs quickly, in fact I spent the whole time trying to shut my phone off and stop the on slew of texts and emails coming in on my blackberry and before I knew it I was being waved on to pass. While a US resident friend of mine from Peru had to have her picture and fingerprints taken. I didn’t even have to check my bags through the scanner before boarding my connecting flight. I did, however, have to scan my bags before I left the Lima airport, which happened before the Dec. 25^th attempted bombing.

I either lucked out on skipping through some of the new security check points, or in reality it is just a few more steps before you can finally board the plane. As for on the plan I didn’t notice any differences especially for the last hour of the flight. Good luck to all you fellow travelers I hope your future airport endeavors go as good if not better than mine.

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Minor update:

I forgot to mention that on the flight back from Lima to Houston I was given metal cutlery! I haven’t seen that since I traveled as a child, and surely thought it would be the last thing I would see after the Dec. 25th attempted bombing. You may now return to your regularly scheduled programming.

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Tags | airplane, airport, airport security, Dec. 25th incident, New TSA regulations, security, transportation security administration, Travel, TSA