Take everything I said a few days ago about TSA agents having a sense of humor and happily allowing pie-wielding passengers to pass through security, and throw it in the trash like so many 4-ounce bottles of shampoo. Sigh.
From the always plain-dealin’ Cleveland Plain Dealer (via USA Today):
Overall, operations at Hopkins were smooth, [(TSA assistant federal security director for Northeast Ohio) Rick] DeChant said, but there was at least one unexpected hiccup this week.
“In the last two days, we have taken a dozen baked pies,” he said.
Pie filling apparently is banned from carry-on luggage, too. But the pies didn’t go to waste. They were taken to the airport’s United Service Organizations lounge, where soldiers passing through can relax and eat.
Well, so much for common sense. Cleveland: unsafe for pies. Charlotte: apparently safe.
At least the pies didn’t go to waste, but the TSA’s inconsistent enforcement of rules for carry-on bags is back on full display.
UPDATE November 27: Pies should never have been confiscated, and that comes from the top: Aviation Daily’s Benet Wilson has the details:
[…] at a press conference Nov. 16 in D.C. with TSA Administrator Kip Hawley, […] a question actually came up about whether passengers could carry pies. We all had a good laugh, but Hawley did say that pies could — COULD — be carried past security. He said that his definition of a liquid is what would happen if he put a questioned substance on a table. If it holds its shape, then it’s not a liquid, he said. So pie would not be considered a liquid, he added.
America 2006, summed up in five words: Pie is not a liquid.
