Yeah guns are easy. You should try flying with a CPAP machine!

Also, have you ever watched the show Airline? Don't fly Southwest!!

Nah, haven't seen airline, but free Southwest tickets are cheaper than driving the car. Can't be worse than Airtran or whatever that is that uses Atlanta as a hub . .. Hold us over night and tell us they'll comp us motel rooms (the whole flight), shuttle us to a motel that had no vacancy & then the customer service people were really nice and said they'd shuttle us to this other motel further out . .. . eventually we get there and they have no vacancy either, meanwhile the customer service people went home. We get shuttled back to the airport and it is pretty much shut down. A night on the benches listening to the "unattended bags. . . . " message every 12 minutes Are you talking about that kind of thing?

Ugh. 'Free' with those hassles? That's the kind of stuff you couldn't give me FREE to accept. (Yeah, I'd rather pay than deal with that much hassle)

I've always been partial to "Mealy-mouthed crotch pheasant" myself.

Southwest was GREAT! Our only hassles came from TSA getting a boner over our sealed in tamper proof, obviously un-tampered with Gerber brand baby food . . . on the way back.

After the TSA agents established that our sealed baby food was in original packaging and we didn't give a rat's kiester if they broke the seals because she was gonna eat it on the flight anyway. . . . they cut us loose.

All things considered, having a baby that needs to eat caused me more problems than taking a gun to AZ did. We didn't miss a flight though and the free tickets were a huge help as we have as much in our bank accounts right now as some of you have in your wallets. Tough times. Glad we know someone who was able to comp us some tickets. Everybody was great on all four flights (MPLS to Denver to Phoenix & back Phoenix to Denver to MPLS) shoot, they even tossed me a free Jack and Ginger on one of those flights . Really good folk. Southwest made a significant positive impression on us.

Told you.

I'm thinking people really don't believe me even when I'm speak from experience. Not just this case specifically, but it's something I've gathered over the course of several unrelated threads where I've offered advice or personal experience in various different matters.

People come back and post like it was the most surprising thing ever that things happen just the way I outlined.
It's kind of disheartening...

Glad to hear you were pleased with your Southwest experience Macx!

Yeah, in Minneapolis they used the sniffer on the milk bottles, looked at the seals on the babyfood and that was the end of it.

Phoenix on the other hand, TSA decided to do the full house, pat us down check all our carry on stuff & really hassle us. It was over the top, they stuck some kind of litmus papers in the bab'y milk but didn't use a sniffer. They knew we were running late, but needed to do a physical pat down on me. . . . my pregnant wife AND the baby, needed to make us keep our shoes off through the whole thing, and yadda, yadda. Of course all of that had racial undertones and they skated pretty close to the edge of completely inappropriate. We were fortunate our flight was just late enough for us to make it, had the plane been on time it woulda been a coin toss not a dice roll.

You're not allowed to carry firearms on planes? I never get hassled when I carry my Glock 7!

You should have just had a TSA agent sneak the gun around the security checkpoint for you

Macx, I've had the exact same experience as you, flying out of MSP tends to be as painless as possible given the current security theater. Flying out of PHX however has been a pain nearly every time I'm through there.

I thought the idea of federalizing airport security was supposed to ensure a uniform application of security polices, clearly that hasn't happened.

Or this guy.

What if you carry guns on a private plane. Any special rules then?

Part of any good security policy to to incorporate randomness and variety. When security practices are uniform and routine, holes in that security are more easily identified and exploited.

That does not necessarily mean this is what TSA is doing...

IIRC, the pilot has to know per part 91.

Joel has claimed that landing at an airport with part 121 operations while in a private plane and in possession of firearms is technically a violation of the sterile area rule, but I'm not entirely convinced.

Heh, good point.