There’s nothing quite like that moment.
You make it through the scanner without a problem. Your coat is back on. Your pockets are empty.
Then your carry-on comes through the X-ray machine and suddenly gets pulled aside for additional screening.
If you’ve ever wondered what happened, the answer may be much simpler than you think.
If you travel often enough, you tend to just “know” the rules for going through TSA security. Don’t have anything in your pockets. Be mindful of what you wear. Don’t go over the limitations for liquids. Don’t have too much powder or snacks in your bag. And, of course, don’t have anything in your carry-on that the TSA says you shouldn’t.
So you follow all the rules and you go through the scanner with no problem. You see your carry-on bag on the conveyor belt and – BEEP – it gets flagged for extra inspection.
What happened?
You were careful. You knew what to not put in your carry-on. You followed the rules. And yet it got flagged. What’s up with that?
It could be something as simple as an overpacked bag.
In this day and age where people get charged for every checked bag, a lot of travelers are trying to avoid checking a bag altogether and stuff everything in their carry-on. And that’s when travelers’ problems start.
As Michael Delgado, a former Transportation Security Officer (TSO) recently said in an interview, “I always advise travelers to never overpack their carry-on bags,” explaining, “It makes your bag harder to see through the X-ray.” And if the TSO looking at the screen can’t determine what’s inside your carry-on, the bag may be pulled for secondary screening. According to Delgado, an overpacked bag is “10 times more likely” to be pulled because “the X-ray operator cannot readily identify the masses in the bag.” So then the contents have to go through a visual inspection.
How to avoid this
The answer, of course, is simple – don’t overpack your bag.
But if that’s going to be the difference between your checking a bag and not, and you’d REALLY rather not check your bag, do what you can to not put so much stuff in your carry on.
- Consider whether you really need each pair of shoes.
- Are there clothes you can wash during your travels? I’ve been known to wash the clothes I traveled there with, and wear them on the way home, too.
- Can you (gulp) rewear things? (I’m not saying to go hiking and wear the same stinky outfit 2 days later. But if you’re wearing something for dinner for 3 hours, and are going out with different people to a different place, maybe you can rewear it tomorrow, too?)
- Every little bit helps, and many hotels still supply shampoo, conditioner and soap.
Also consider using a packing cube that you can pull out of your bag, and let it go through the scanner separately, so it doesn’t “clog up the works.”
Or just pack as you normally do and make sure you get to the airport early enough so if your bag DOES get flagged for hand inspection, you’re not looking at your watch constantly, hoping you’ll make your plane.
At the end of the day, TSA officers aren’t necessarily looking for reasons to make your trip more difficult.
They’re looking for anything they can’t clearly identify on the X-ray screen.
And according to one former TSA officer, that’s where overpacked bags can become a problem. The more densely packed your carry-on is, the harder it can be for screeners to determine exactly what’s inside.
So if your bag gets pulled for inspection, it doesn’t automatically mean you’ve packed something prohibited.
Sometimes it just means you’ve gotten a little too good at fitting everything into one carry-on.
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