Flying With Fish The Blog for Those Who Fly & Those Who Want to Fly Smarter

Last Monday, the 3rd of June, Star Wars star Peter Mayhew, better known as everyone’s favourite Wookiee, Chewbacca, was briefly stopped by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) at Denver International Airport with his chest-high light saber. Standing 7-feet 2-inches tall, the light saber double’s as the 69 year old actor’s cane.   While the TSA [...]

This afternoon at 14:42hrs EST the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) Administrator John S. Pistole sent an email to all agency employees regarding a “Prohibited Items List Update.”   The email, one which was expected by many, rereversed an already reversed decision by Administrator Pistole to withdraw the March 5 2013 announcement that passengers would be [...]

Today’s reader mail comes from Vincent R., from Springfield, Massachusetts. Vincent writes “I have noticed the TSA in my local Amtrak station during the past few months. Amtrak Police refer to these uniformed TSA officers as TSA VIPR Teams. What exactly are they doing?”   Well Vincent, over the past few years there has been [...]

The headline of “Lone Gunman Opens Fire & Commits Suicide” is becoming all to frequent. Major headlines have most notably occurred in the past few months in movie theaters and schools. Today another headline appears in the same manner, but inside an airport terminal and the only victim was the gunman.   While details are [...]

Later this week, on the 25th of April, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) was all set to adjust its list of prohibited items allowed to be carried into an aircraft cabin, including small pocket knives, golf clubs and certain types of bats, however these changes have now been delayed.   In an e-mail from TSA [...]

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has long since done away with the redundant process of requiring passengers to present their boarding pass to a Transportation Security Officer (TSO) before passenger screening, after they have already presented their identification and travel documents to the TSO acting as a travel document checker.   The process of double [...]

Today marks the tenth time I have used my United States Passport Card as identification while flying a domestic flight rather than my drivers’ license since I received it this past February. Today also marks the fourth time a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) Transportation Security Officer (TSO) checking identification and board documents has looked up [...]

Regardless of how you feel about the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) they agency serves a defined purpose, that of securing transportation security in the United States, primarily in airports. Working along side the TSA in airports are police officers, who are supposed to enforce the laws within the airports, ensuring airport security regulations are properly [...]

On the 25th of April the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) will once again allow certain types of knives, and other prohibited items, to fly once again as carry-on items, which I detailed on the 6th of March in Sharpen Your Knives, Polish Your Golf Clubs & Fly! Since the TSA’s announcement there has been a [...]

I am not only an AvGeek and frequent flyer … I am also the father of an autistic child. Autism takes many different forms and makes traveling as a family very challenging.   I wrestle with the very notion of taking my youngest son on a flight, because I can not predict what the experience will [...]