J.K. Rowling Challenges Airport Security

Apparently, anything can be made into a bomb nowadays.

As I understand it (my parents are traveling to England this week and had to prepare more for the trip back), UK to US flights only are still under highly restrictive rules from the last terror alert - not that you can't bring anything, but you are allowed exactly one carryon, no larger than a briefcase per person. Of course, there's restrictions on what that can contain, the idea being the smaller the case is, the faster they can get through searches.

Assuming she's got all her handwritten pages, I would expect that the manuscript is just a notch larger, figure trying to carry 3 reams of paper, likely in a box that's maybe twice as large as a standard briefcase, which would fall outside the allowance.

But there is a serious issue here now. The reason most people want to carry on stuff as much as possible is that people have very little faith in baggage handling. I have a friend whose parents went overseas for 2 weeks. They were limited to a single carryon apiece, so they had their medicine, digital camera, and key information. But, the airline lost their baggage (found I believe about 4 days later), and they couldn't get in touch with anyone at the airline's baggage office; so they had literally just the clothes on their backs and enough to live by. Instead of spending the first day vacationing, they had to go shopping for the bare essentials in clothing and toiletries, and I don't think they got any reimbrusement for what they had to buy. Fortunately, their hotel was very accomodating and gave them a lot of free stuff to help out.

Baggage handling by airlines has always been a sticty situation, and yes, you're putting millions of bags through a day and something is bound to be lost or temporarily rerouted - it's an impossible job to do by computer (see Denver's airport) and human error will always come in. But in today's hightened security, I think the airlines need to step up efforts to either reduce error in baggage handling or to provide a lot more assistance to passanges if baggage does get misplaced. Maybe have a special class of baggage, like Rowling's manuscript, or say family heirlooms or other highly valuable items that you'd pay extra for for insurance and by-hand handling when you fly. Baggage is lost and can't be found within an hour of landing? Airline should hand you a check for $50 to at least by clothes and toiletries that were likely in the bag, and then be prepared to pay a lot more if the bag cant be found with a couple days.

I know that if I had more assurances that my bags would always be there when I land, I'd take a lot less on the carryon and put more into the checked baggage, which benefits everyone. But unless the airlines step up, I have a feeling that the clash between what people want with proper baggage checking and security restrictions on carryons is going to lead to a lot of incidents of airport rage, which only serves to worsen the situation in some potential self-perpetuating circle (some guy is pissed and hits a TSA person with his suitcase, prompts airports to make curbside checkin only and prevents any large bags from going into the airport, making lines outside the airport even worse, leading to car accidents and so forth...)