How to Clear Airport Security Unscathed
- This Southern Girl
- Nov 23, 2016
- 2 min read
Being a frequent flier I believe I’ve finally mastered the art of quickly navigating those airport security lines with minimal interruptions. While I'm sure we all secretly enjoy the frisk of a security officer, missing the flight because of a delay will ruin the moment. Therefore, here are my six airport security line life hacks to get you through the gates with your sanity, belongings and dignity in check.
1) Make sure that if you’re not checking luggage your liquids are less than 100ml and in a quart size plastic recloseable bag. When packing, leave the plastic bag at the top of your hand luggage in order to ensure easy access under pressure.
2) Even if your make up bag has no liquids, go ahead and pull it out with the plastic bag. This will reduce the chance of your bag being flagged to one side due to a misinterpretation of a bottle.
3) Have too many liquids? Separate what you need into two plastic bags. The first bag carries all your essential must haves and in the 2nd bag place all the bottles you could part ways with if you had to. Then place the separate zip locks into separate luggage bins spreading out your other items between the two bins. I’ve had a 100% success rate at sneaking a few extra items through security to date, but be prepared to lose a few toiletries should it come to that.
4) If you don’t want to take off your shoes, you’re better off wearing tennis shoes or flats with no heel or medal embellishments. This isn’t a fool proof method to keep your shoes on, as the rules seem to vary based on the airport. However, you’ll have a better chance of keeping your feet covered this way. If you choose to pick shoes that require you to take them off, get them ready so you can just slip them off and throw them in a tray.
5) Think about how you’ll quickly put everything back together. I typically put my liquids in the first tray with my shoes, the 2nd tray carries my luggage unzipped so I can quickly slip my liquids and make up bags back in to my luggage, followed by a third tray with any sweaters or jackets.
6) And finally, put your passport and boarding pass away as soon as possible. In most cases you don’t need them after the first check, which might be a security officer or a fancy scan machine, but as soon as you can put these away. They will only get in your way and it’s not worth the risk of misplacing them in the security shuffle.
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