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Comment on Understanding American Airport Security Following 9/11 (2019)parent

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Yet I can’t drink part of my water bottle to prove that it’s not an explosive.

If I'm going to blow up the plane I'm on, maybe I wouldn't care about poisoning myself a few hours before? As long as its slow enough acting.

This kind of insane fear is why flying (especially in/from/to America) has become so miserable.

Yeah anyone motivated to take down a plane can just buy a surface-to-air missile for a few grand.

You can't get those on aliexpress, but you can get drones. And laser pointers, a surprisingly effective anti-pilot weapon. And, of course, in America you've got a constitutional entitlement to as many small arms as you think you might need for ground-based terrorist attacks.

I thought they don't allow water bottles so you don't mess up on the airplane.

I don’t know if it’s different in the US, but here in Europe you can bring water bought after going through security. I think it’s more a means to make people buy things at the airport at inflated prices.

You can buy water in the us airports, or bring an empty bottle and fill it. And besides they HAND you a cup of water on the plane if you ask. Had nothing to do with making a "mess" not did it have anything to do with forcing you to purchase anything. It is merely because it might be liquid explosives.

Most airports provide a water fountain, often with a dedicated water bottle filling spout, right after security.

I flew Scoot from SE Asia (Singapore or Bangkok, can't remember which) to Germany back in 2019, and they had one functioning water fountain between security and boarding. Needless to say, everyone wanted to fill their water bottles and the queue got long. So long that the plane started boarding before it was half done. Aircrew staff were shouting at people to stop filling their water bottles and get on the plane. We passengers, realising that for once we had some power, refused. We knew they couldn't take off with our baggage but not us, and getting our baggage off the plane would take longer than the delay to just fill our bottles. So we ignored the shouting and filled our bottles. The plane took off 15 mins late (iirc). It felt great :)

I have no idea if it affected Scoot's policy on charging for water on the flight, or the airport's attitude to water fountains. I like to think it did.

Flying out of Panama this year, we discovered that they don't care about water bottles. I would love for airport security to finally get over this idea that water bottles might potentially contain explosives.

This. In most European airports I empty my bottle before security, and refill after.

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