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Just when you thought that some stability and sensibility were coming to the carry-on luggage game, the British Airports Authority (BAA) throws a wrench into things:

Britain’s main airport operator yesterday banned all cosmetics from passengers’ hand luggage unless the items were bought at shops in the departure lounge. Under the new restrictions, imposed by BAA, travellers are forbidden to take talcum powder, lipstick, eyeliner and mascara through security control. These items had been exempted from the ban, while other cosmetics such as lip gloss had been banned from the start of the terrorist alert. The move was designed to end confusion, said a spokesman for BAA which owns Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Southampton, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen airports.

Designed to end confusion, or to subsidize cosmetics sales at those seven airports? Actually, the tighter restrictions are most likely the result of increased delays at checkpoints: When all carry-ons were illegal, security went faster. Now that security officers sort through carry-on luggage more closely, the delays have gone up, and make-up is apparently a prime culprit.

But only those airports owned by BAA are imposing these rules. Other UK airports had completely different restrictions:

Cardiff, for example, allowed passengers to take talcum powder, lipstick and eyeliner through security as long as they were X-rayed before being allowed into the departure lounge. Birmingham airport’s website said it was still allowing passengers to take lipstick on board. However, it explicitly banned gel-filled bras.

In theory, airport security should be no different in Birmingham than in Glasgow. Changing the rules as they go along makes mockery of an already dubious policy (see this page on Ryanair’s site mocking UK airport security — barely safe for work, no pun intended).

But the fact that the BAA-owned airports are the only ones imposing these tighter rules gives credence to economist Joseph Stiglitz’s argument in today’s Financial Times (subscription required) that poorly-planned privatization of airport ownership is the root of the problems.:

Flights were cancelled and delayed largely because BAA lacked sufficient trained staff for security checks. […] There is an incompatibility of incentives, and because airports are a monopoly there is no competition to force it to change. […] Without appropriate incentives, a private operator bears the cost of additional personnel and equipment, but gets none of the benefit. The inexorable drive for profit maximisation leads to excessive economisation; BAA’s profits rise at the expense of airline profits and consumer welfare; and society is worse off. The seeming disdain BAA shows for customers and users is what one might expect from a monopolist.

Zing! Among Stiglitz’s suggestions: make the airlines stakeholders in the airports. If they’d own a piece of the pie, then they’d pressure the airport operators to run a more efficient operation that doesn’t tick off the passengers.

Don’t hold your breath for that solution. In the meantime, if you’re traveling in the UK, you’ll need to check with your airline and the airport your traveling to/from to see the latest restrictions. Almost makes you long for the TSA, doesn’t it?…

tags: travel | BAA | aiports | security