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New Restrictions

Jill

Call me cynical, but this “you cannot pee within an hour of landing” seems a bit… simplistic. I mean, yeah, deter people from blowing shit up. But when you’re making the decision between blowing shit up an hour before landing verus two hours before landing, you have failed.

And yes, I understand that the majority of airport security measures, from taking your shoes off to only being able to board with a certain volume of liquid, are psychological rather than practical. But let’s maybe make it less transparent, pals.

55 thoughts on New Restrictions

  1. I can’t be the only person who finds this terribly anxiety-inducing. When people were afraid of somebody was going to blow up a plane with their shoes or water bottle, I wasn’t worried, but god forbid there’s no bathroom. Give me toilets or give me death!

  2. Uh huh: “passengers on international flights coming to the United States will apparently have to remain in their seats for the last hour of a flight without any personal items on their laps”.

    Well, that sounds like yet another good reason for not visiting the US any time soon. Between 1995 and 2004 I visited the US at least eight times: never since.

    I decided earlier than many friends that it was no longer worth the hassle of being treated as a criminal suspect.

  3. The ways of air travel have always baffled me.

    I understand not getting up during the last hour. But they don’t allow you to have a book, sketchbook, laptop, ipod? What in holy fuck do you do if you have a kid? Also, do you really want to encourage all your passengers to fall asleep for lack of anything else to do right at the *end* of the flight?

    Fun fact: For most of my life I thought that planes were more like an Amtrak train, and you could get up and walk around, and there was a snack car you could go to and buy your own food/drink. My first conscious plane trip (not counting the one while I was an infant) was when I was 16ish for the high school journalism convention, which was in Portland that year. It was on a tiny little puddlejumper that was bumping and bobbingly turbulent the whole way. And I LOVED IT. It was like a roller coaster ride!

    Not so much now, when the only place I’d bother to go on plane is 5-6 hours straight-trip. And I have to hold my hands in the air for the last hour to prove I’m not injecting liquid into my ankle or something.

  4. That’s going to make travel harder & more nerve-racking for me. I fly once or twice a year… And I have some l bathroom frequency issues to begin with! What the hell, am I going to need to get a doctors note to use the bathroom now? “Dear TSA, plz excuse K’s bathroom habits, she has problems.” What I need a prescription to pee now? Would that even work?
    Okay, in practice it might not be that urgent for me and the last half hour or so is usually spent descending anyway… You’re not supposed to get up then either but I duno… Not cool. I don’t want to have to think about it.

  5. My sister is 32 weeks pregnant and has to fly tomorrow. Boy is she thrilled about the “no peeing for an hour” rule.

    1. Uh, L, obviously I understand that they made these rules because of the latest terrorist attempt. But just because that particular terrorist tried to blow up the plane in the final hour of flight doesn’t mean that it’s “perfectly reasonable” to disallow anyone from peeing for the last hour. As I said (or at least implied) in the post, by the time the explosives are on board the aircraft, your security measures have failed. So you can’t blow up the plan in the last hour — now you’ll just have to blow it up in the final two hours, or during take-off, or at some other point.

      It’s not a reasonable security measure. It a way to make the airlines look like they’re doing something, without actually doing anything.

  10. Here’s what I recognize from Jill’s statement: the bathroom rule won’t stop terrorists. It is, in part, psychological. There’s also probably a theory behind it that goes something like this: Planes are going to be brought down, mostly, right near their destination, because big airports are targets in their own right, and they also tend to be near big cities. Therefore, the terrorist is going to want to wait until about a half hour before landing to bring down the plane. It’s plausible that a terrorist would go to the bathroom and then very quickly turn around and do their terrorist thang [sic] a half hour outside of an airport or major city, because you’re still close enough that the collateral damage will be a statement in its own right. But if the terrorist has to prep, and then sit quietly for another half hour before reaching the secondary target of the act, the preparation is more likely to be discovered, and the act prevented.

    Separately, it occurs to me that this rule shows how law and enforcement are different– enforcement is not as uniform as law, and therefore it is more fair, not less. If you have a kid, if you are a pregnant woman, you will probably be allowed to go to the bathroom. Having the absolute rule on the books resolves borderline situations by creating the appearance of removal of judgment.

    There’s no such thing as an absolutely fair system, and giving flight attendants a rule they can point to in order to get the benefits of the rule prevents allegations of profiling from torpedoing the desired policy. Kids, pregnant women, and people who can identify medication or medical conditions requiring them to go to the bathroom will probably still be able to go to the bathroom. Everyone else will have to wait. But because humans are not prophets, it’s better not to ennumerate the loopholes, and instead let fight attendants exercise some discretion.

    The reason not to specify that it’s at the discretion of the flight attendants is that if the law specifies that the flight attendants have discretion, then they can be pressured to provide an exception when they would prefer not to. It also makes them grant discretion more selectively, since it is a more serious reflection on them if the grant of discretion results in something bad happening.

    Yes, this law effectively encourages profiling. That said, there’s a difference between a law that encourages affirmative acts based on a negative profile, versus a law which encourages avoidance of action (i.e. enforcement) based on a positive profile.

    I also want to know what airline policies are on actions taken and blame placed when a passenger urinates on a seat.

  11. Are they mad?

    The problem this week was dealt with quite efficiently with the security measures we have in place – which includes passengers and flight crews with a sense of community responsibility who will stop inappropriate behavior.

    But making everyone sit for the last hour, with nothing on their lap ?

    1. There are children on the plane. Making them sit for an hour with nothing to do is cruel to them, their parents, and all the other passengers.

    2. Many parents travel with infants carrying them in their arms rather than buying a seat. What do you do now, put baby in the luggage bin?

    3. It is currently medically recommended that people get up and walk around the cabin periodically, to reduce the risk of blood clots forming the legs, and that leading to a heart attack or stroke. Can you say “lawsuit waiting to happen”? I knew you could. And never mind the lawsuits, a decent airline would object just because they’re not happy about having their customers dead.

    4. Once more, we surrender to the terrorists. This week’s attempt seemed ill-planned and unlikely to succeed. It didn’t succeed, on its own. But this is giving terrorists success, by letting them terrorize and continue to disrupt things forever.

  12. All of the above; plus, an hour is way more than an hour once you add all the malarkey at either end. Not everyone is going to get into the toilet just before the Golden Hour of Doom begins; and after it ends, there is all the faffing around getting luggage and disembarking and finding a toilet – a slow enough process for able-bodied folks, far slower for those who aren’t. This is a disaster for people with disabilities and medical issues of various kinds, as well as for parents and guardians. And everyone else in the plane with the folks with Bali belly and unchanged dirty diapers and whatever else is going on – there is quite a lot of potential for major public health issues as well.

    I’m becoming increasingly convinced that I’ll never fly internationally again.

  13. Also ridiculous. Now people are getting arrested for doing nothing more than speaking their native language on or near a plane:

    http://www.seattlepi.com/local/287261_tamil02ww.html
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/27/AR2009122701422.html

    This stuff makes me physically ill.

    Does anyone see passengers “erring on the side of caution” and reporting Spanish, French, Japanese, Russian, etc. speakers? Can we at least call a spade by spade and admit this is all straight-up racism and theater to make us (white people) all feel a little safer about getting on a plane with “those people”?

    I am awfully tempted to refuse to speak English when I fly home this week. Of course, my language of choice (Spanish) still enjoys relative privilege. *And* enough of my fellow passengers will understand what I’m saying that it’s unlikely they’ll think it’s suspicious. Plus I’m white and female, and thus “don’t look like a terrorist” — but I just can’t come up with another way of expressing my disgust.

  14. The problem in this circumstance is, as I read it, that the explosives brought aboard the plane should have been easily detectable by the most rudimentary of scanning systems. It seems like security had grown a bit lax over time.

    I’m not saying all these measures are justified. I suppose it’s up to us to not grow panic-stricken. During the London Blitz, those who lived in the city itself knew of neighbors killed and homes destroyed, but kept on resolutely living their lives as best they could.

  15. The mind boggles. Total ineptitude and incompetence laid bare, and what does the jackboot crowd say? “This terrah shows we need even more authoritAH! Get in your seat! Nothing in your lap! Stow your baby in the cargo hold! No getting up to pee!”

    If these goons had a scrap of decency they’d focus on their own scary-ass failure: I mean, a 23-year-old man whose name and appearance fit the profiles that authorities use, and whose father had warned the U.S. embassy in Nigeria that he had terrorist tendencies, waddles onto an international flight carrying syringes and explosives? Nah, they’d rather bark useless, non sequitur commands at their captives. THAT they can do. Improve security, not so much.

  16. This certainly is security theater, and it boggles the mind that something that every reasonable person knows is a farce is allowed to continue and waste billions in taxpayer dollars and untold billions in people’s lost time, productivity, and aggravation.

    I would go a step further, though — we should avoid enacting even security measures that actually work, if they also result in millions of Americans being intimidated, dominated and controlled on a daily basis. These small, daily conflicts are the modern struggle against authoritarianism, and the danger of dying in a terror attack or similar act are the price we pay for staying free today. Prior generations were asked to stand up to police dogs and firehoses, storm Normandy beaches, and fight against their countrymen for liberty. We only have to accept the minuscule risk of being the victim of a terror attack.

  17. Why impose potty restrictions when the US government could use the opportunity to fix the sexist(all the Sesame Street characters are male), broken colour code system the Reich Guard US Department of Homeland Security is so proud of? Setting the “Terror Level” to “Super Duper Ernie” is just sad.

    Which is why I’m running a campaign to have the Reich Guard US Department of Homeland Security institute an “Abby” (Caddaby) level between Ernie and Elmo her so that little girls can better relate to the uncommon stupidity that exemplifies the American people
    here

  18. These restrictions are quite upsetting on several levels, and I second lauredhel’s statement that these restrictions can be particularly burdensome for PWD. In addition to what’s already been mentioned, I’m concerned about security regulations possibly becoming more “unpredictable.” WTF? Why does TSA think that it’s okay to do this to people? The relative predictability of the current onerous restrictions are the only thing which make it bearable currently. And some of us have disabilities which make “unpredictability” a very, very difficult thing. As though the airport security process wasn’t difficult enough for many PWD already, now we have to consider “unpredictability” (which is by definition hard to prepare for). And some of us might have to recite our medical histories for perfect strangers just to go to the bathroom? Ridiculous. Why does it often seem as though accessibility concerns are the last thing that TSA cares about?

  20. Something tells me that rule will be very hard to enforce.

    I bet they’ll just do it for a few months and throw that rule away.

    They’ve done away with requiring your ID at the gate and going through the detectors.

    So confusing.

  21. The Flash, there’s a big hole in your theory, which is this: Bathroom or not, a terrorist would have to smuggle on a bomb big enough to blow up a plane to bring it down, like you imagine. And as this incident shows, that’s not going to happen. They could try to start a fire, that’s it.

  22. It seems to me this guy got close– rules are going to have to change or else we’re just inviting a trial-and-error series of attempts, and ultimately, success.

  23. According to the discussion of this topic at Making Light, TSA has already back off the 1 hour no-walk nothing on your lap rule.

    Which is hopeful, if the current administration can see when they’ve overreacted and fix it, rather than clinging to the idea that it is necessary because they’ve done it.

  24. Kids, pregnant women, and people who can identify medication or medical conditions requiring them to go to the bathroom will probably still be able to go to the bathroom.

    And of course, no terrorist will ever consider it ethical to fake a medical condition . . .

  25. Separately, it occurs to me that this rule shows how law and enforcement are different– enforcement is not as uniform as law, and therefore it is more fair, not less. If you have a kid, if you are a pregnant woman, you will probably be allowed to go to the bathroom. Having the absolute rule on the books resolves borderline situations by creating the appearance of removal of judgment.

    Hahahaha! That’s a funny joke!

    … wait. You’re serious?

    More often than not, any discrepancy between law and enforcement of said law ends up working against people who are marginalized or in difficult circumstances.

    So the people who most need the bathroom will end up being the ones who are least likely to get it. Because they have been annoying the flight attendant for the entire flight with their screaming children or need for extra drinks at set time periods in order to take medication or condition that makes it difficult to communicate in a conventional manner — and so forth.

    When there is a difference between the written word of the law and the way the law is actually executed, because it depends on the enforcer’s own personal judgment, you can be fairly sure it’s because people’s judgments are subject to their own prejudices. Which means that the people on the wrong side of said prejudice are the ones who feel the ill effects.

  27. Kids, pregnant women, and people who can identify medication or medical conditions requiring them to go to the bathroom will probably still be able to go to the bathroom.

    Yes, because as a PWD, I totally want to disclose my medical condition(s) to complete strangers (who may not even believe that I have these conditions) in order to prove my bathroom-worthiness.

    Boy howdy, these regulations will make air travel even *more* pleasant–in the name of SAFETY!

  28. Yay. I get to talk about how I can’t feel that I have to pee until right before I do. That’ll be a fun conversation to have with total strangers.

    Amandaw said

    More often than not, any discrepancy between law and enforcement of said law ends up working against people who are marginalized or in difficult circumstances.

    Yes this.

  29. I flew on the first day of the crotch-clearing rule. My United flight from Vancouver to San Francisco was practically in open revolt when the flight attendant announced that everyone had to put away their tray tables and sit tight for the next hour. People could not believe that they were being asked to do this after being searched twice. All carry ons were hand-inspected and we got a full-body pat down at the gate. They even made me unzip my pants to check the button on my jeans. It’s bullshit security theater.

  30. ‘Kids, pregnant women, and people who can identify medication or medical conditions requiring them to go to the bathroom will probably still be able to go to the bathroom.’

    uh. probably? probably is about a million miles away from being good enough.

  31. My United flight from Vancouver to San Francisco was practically in open revolt when the flight attendant announced that everyone had to put away their tray tables and sit tight for the next hour. People could not believe that they were being asked to do this after being searched twice.

    I find this hopeful, if the general public is starting to draw a line on how far security theater can go.

  33. I think it would be hilarious if this results in lots of people just peeing in their seats. I’m sure the airlines will be thrilled with having to deal with and pay for the clean-up.

  34. Second what everyone else has said about the burden on people who need to go to the bathroom. This seems like a lot of humiliation in exchange for not much increased security. The medical-needs issue is not only about convenience. It’s a matter of safety in its own right. It’s not just that bathrooms will be restricted: it’s that the sudden need for a bathroom is now suspicious. PWD are therefore more likely to be suspected, and that’s a problem.

    Also, terrorism aside, it’s not safe to turn air travel into a painful, humiliating experience for passengers. The crew is responsible for keeping everyone alive. A bitter, adversarial relationship could make that task more difficult in any emergency.

  35. My United flight from Vancouver to San Francisco was practically in open revolt when the flight attendant announced that everyone had to put away their tray tables and sit tight for the next hour. People could not believe that they were being asked to do this after being searched twice.

    I mean, this. I know that terrorism is the only danger facing Americans today, but it’s not a good idea to make people want to riot.

  36. IMO, this rule is going to be enforced only until someone actually does end up doing exactly that (whether because they truly had no control, or because they just wanted to protest the policy). Although, in general, I’d guess a flight attendant would rather bend the rule than try to clean up the resulting mess.

  37. I take Amtrak pretty much exclusively in North America now that I’m not supposed to drive due to a medical condition, and have not been overseas in the past four years. Amtrak sometimes costs twice what a plane ticket does, but with each passing “security measure” it becomes a better value.

  38. It sucks, ’cause the idiots who thought this is a good idea are NOT the people who are going to be stuck 1) enforcing this upon an upset/angry/stressed/complaining crowd and 2) cleaning up the mess.

    It would be awesome to see a flight attendants’ union striking to make the TSA higher-ups come clean piss out of airplane seats, but I don’t think it’ll happen.

    And, *really* not getting how any amount of “you can’t do this” would be that useful against a sufficiently determined terrorist—if I recall correctly, the September 11th terrorists were not supposed to be taking over the plane.

  39. @Comrade Kevin
    I’m not saying all these measures are justified. I suppose it’s up to us to not grow panic-stricken. During the London Blitz, those who lived in the city itself knew of neighbors killed and homes destroyed, but kept on resolutely living their lives as best they could.

    Couple of things, the Blitz did not purely happen in London, Bristol and Coventry amongst many others also experienced it so it is generally just refered to as The Blitz.

    Also, London was the victim of terrorist attacks a few years back on the main forms of public transport for everyone living in London. Again there was a spirit of “Keep Calm and Carry On” and the next day people were using the Tube and buses to get around. So you don’t need to go back to WWII to see people resolutely living their lives.

    These rules make me less and less likely to visit the US as they seem to be made to humiliate the people who use planes instead of protect them. Especially those people who would qualify to be allowed to use the toilet, as has been previously said i wouldn’t want to disclose any of my medical details to a complete stranger or not be “allowed” to exercise a basic human need.

  40. NONE of this has been officially announced on the TSA web site. The source is Air Canada’s web site. I cannot imagine that the “nothing in your lap” rule is actually going to go into effect because of the firestorm of protest and the possibility of lawsuits from people who are doing things like reading books or knitting. I also think that the “no pee” rule is going to fall pretty quickly, if it’s even instituted on domestic flights (which so far it hasn’t from what I can tell).

    Unless and until TSA, not Air Canada or another airline, announces these changes, I’m not going to panic. I think it’s much more likely that electronic devices will be banned for the last hour of a flight. That would suck, but that’s at least understandable.

  41. I have a condition, and as a 22-year-old I found myself wearing an adult diaper on the plane because I was pretty sick at the time and I knew there would be a brief period when I couldn’t go to the bathroom. I would prefer to never have to do that again. I guess if I travel in the near future, I’ll probably have to.

    And how does this affect short flights? I would fly between Chicago and Kansas City, which takes an hour to an hour and a half. So you can’t get up for the entire flight? That would be pretty cruel. Why even bother having toilets? (The flight was literally … take off, beverage cart comes through, beverage cart comes to pick up your trash, and then we landed. Short short short.)

  42. And airlines wonder why they’re failing.

    I just made a decision not to plan any flying holidays. I can drive or take the train or just not go. I prefer that to having an already unpleasant necessity (I don’t enjoy flying) transformed into a control event. I already have triggering issues with the arbitrary exercise of authority. Having these kinds of rules imposed on me would be a hellish ordeal.

  43. I have a great idea for how to stage a terrorist attack! First, you tell people on a flight that for the last hour they are not to go to the toilet or have anything on their laps. Then, you use the resulting unrest to stage a revolt and take over the plane.

    This hasn’t been made official, and I think it is unlikely to. There would be far too much protest. But then, never underestimate the power of fear.

  44. Anyone else being reminded of a totalitarian third grade teacher by this? Seriously, this isn’t “for your safety”. This is “someone acted up so put your heads down on your desk until I say so”.

  45. I think the chances of exceptions being made for PWD, pregnant women, or kids are close to none for one reason: Well, she sure looks pregnant. But if she ends up blowing up the plane, it’ll be my fault, because I broke the rules. No flight attendant is going to take that bullet.

    (So to speak.)

  46. My favorite thing was that they disabled the seaback screens on some flights so you wouldn’t see the map and know you were near a city. Like there’s no windows.

  47. What they really mean is that you can’t pee in the lavatory. Well, if that’s how they wanna play it, I can just use the barf bag. It’s watertight. Probably.

    What they really ought to worry about is if I ate some of that dubious Halal cart food before I got on the plane. NYC residents know the ones I’m talking about. That lamb always smells so tempting, but who knows how long it’s been out there? A few hours after eating that, and there’s a good chance that peeing in a bag is going to be the *most* sanitary, least gross body function emergency I might have.

  48. I would say that the TSA deserves every messed-up seat they’re going to get when they prevent people from using the bathroom, but the TSA isn’t going to be the ones cleaning up the mess anyway. Everybody loses.

  49. Head Terrorist: DAMNIT, TERRORIST #1! You were supposed to blow up that plane and everyone on it! Instead, you just sat in your seat until it landed. What went wrong?
    Terrorist #1: Well, see, I tried. But when I went to blow up the plane and everyone on it, the flight attendant politely asked me to return to my seat as toilet trips were not permitted in the last hour of the flight. So I had to sit down. I didn’t want to cause trouble with the cabin crew, even if I *were* planning to blow them all up.
    Head Terrorist: Very well. We’ve failed this time. But there MUST be a way to get around that toilet trip restriction…..
    (TO BE CONTINUED)

  50. They have to make it simplistic. Have you ever tried explaining something to a parent who’s gone completely brainless, and only is able to acknowledge their partner or child? I wouldn’t be surprised, that there’d be an issue lately cause a parent couldn’t let preshous potty during the last hour.

    If it were to be anymore simplistic, it’d be presented in a Sesame Street musical type of song. Which would probably be the only thing that could get a parents’ attention, since it seems from my experience once people become parents they allow their behavior to regress to that of a small child, or even more annoying to the behaviorial age of a snarky teen.

  51. I just flew internationally into the US today, and this rule was not enforced in any way. People went to the bathroom and held stuff on their laps as they pleased, and there was no mention of it. It seems much more of a one or two day response rather than a new policy that will actually ever be implemented. Also, I did notice that the tracking did not work, but then again it didn’t work on my flight out of the US on December 12, before the attacks, so I just figured it was a United Airlines glitch. I guess, annoying as it is not to know where you are or how much longer you will have to be flying, I’d rather they not tell us than have them do some new stupid policy like sitting with nothing in your laps for the last hour.

  52. And how does this affect short flights? I would fly between Chicago and Kansas City, which takes an hour to an hour and a half. So you can’t get up for the entire flight? That would be pretty cruel. Why even bother having toilets? (The flight was literally … take off, beverage cart comes through, beverage cart comes to pick up your trash, and then we landed. Short short short.)

    The new rule is only for international flights coming into the United States. It doesn’t include domestic flights… so your Chicago to KC trips won’t be impacted.

    It’s still a horrible rule, but thankfully it’s only for international flights… for now.

  53. Yeah, just to add to the chorus of people with disabilities or health conditions who are particularly affected by this rule. I have very little warning about when I have to go to the bathroom, and then I have a short window in which to go before the excruciating pain starts. Fun times.

  54. Can I just say I’m bothered by people saying we should just pee on the seats? Do you really think anyone going to feel great about peeing all over the place?

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