The U.S. Transportation Security Administration will still prohibit some knives, including those with locking blades or molded handles. 
 
 The U.S. Transportation Security Administration will still prohibit some knives,... Read More 
 
 The U.S. Transportation Security Administration will still prohibit some knives, including those with locking blades or molded handles. Close 
 
 The U.S. Transportation Security Administration will let people carry small pocketknives onto passenger planes for the first time since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, along with golf clubs, hockey sticks and plastic Wiffle Ball-style bats. 
 
 The agency will permit knives with retractable blades shorter than 6 centimeters (2.36 inches) and narrower than 1/2 inch, TSA Administrator John Pistole said today at an aviation security conference in Brooklyn. The change, to conform with international rules, takes effect April 25. 
 
 Passengers will also be allowed to board flights with some other items that are currently prohibited, including sticks used to play lacrosse, billiards and hockey, ski poles and as many as two golf clubs, Pistole said. 
 
 The changes attracted criticism from labor unions representing flight attendants. 
 
 “This policy was designed to make the lives of TSA staff easier, but not make flights safer,” Stacy Martin, president of the Transportation Workers Union local that represents Southwest Airlines Co. flight attendants, said in a statement. 
 
 “While we agree that a passenger wielding a small knife or swinging a golf club or hockey stick poses less of a threat to the pilot locked in the cockpit, these are real threats to passengers and flight attendants in the passenger cabin,” Martin said. 
 
 ‘Shortsighted Decision’ 
 
 Pistole’s announcement reflects “a poor and shortsighted decision by the TSA,” the Flight Attendants Union Coalition, representing five labor groups, said in a statement. “We believe that these proposed changes will further endanger the lives of all flight attendants and the passengers we work so hard to keep safe and secure.” 
 
 Changes removing items like sporting goods from the prohibited list are based on recommendations from a TSA working group that’s trying to weed out commonly confiscated items that don’t present a security threat, agency spokesman David Castelveter said. 
 
 “These are popular items we see regularly,” Castelveter said. “They don’t present a risk to transportation security.” 
 
 Pistole, the former No. 2 official at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, has stressed the use of intelligence and “risk- based” security during his tenure leading TSA. The agency is moving away from uniform procedures that apply to every passenger and toward efforts to perform background checks on passengers before they arrive at an airport. 
 
 Speeding Checkpoints 
 
 Besides conforming with international rules, the TSA policy changes will keep U.S. checkpoint officials from spending time confiscating objects that don’t present a risk, Pistole said. The changes will let more passengers go through screening lines more quickly, he said. 
 
 “The idea that we have to look for, to find and then somehow resolve whatever that prohibited item is -- that takes time and effort,” Pistole said. “That may detract us from that item that could lead to a catastrophic failure on an aircraft.” 
 
 The greatest threat to U.S. travelers is currently small, non-metallic bombs, not knives or sporting equipment, Pistole said. 
 
 Overseas passengers will no longer have to check the qualifying knives as they pass through the U.S. 
 
 The agency will still prohibit some knives, including those with locking blades or molded handles, like those used by hunters for skinning, Pistole said. There’s still concern about knives clearly intended for use as weapons, he said. 
 
 Box Cutters 
 
 Box cutters, like those used by the Sept. 11 terrorists, and razor blades will still be banned. 
 
 “The sensitivity to those who were attacked on 9/11 still resonates strongly,” Pistole said. “There’s just too much emotion associated with them, particularly the box cutters.” 
 
 The agency also is carving out two exceptions to its ban on most baseball and softball bats. It will allow souvenir, novelty baseball bats less than 24 inches long and will permit lightweight plastic bats even if they’re more than 2 feet long (61 centimeters). 
 
 To contact the reporter on this story: Jeff Plungis in Washington at jplungis@bloomberg.net 
 
 To contact the editor responsible for this story: Bernard Kohn at bkohn2@bloomberg.net ||||| Some family members of victims killed in the Sept. 11 terror attacks said Wednesday that they are outraged by the Transportation Security Administration's decision to let passengers carry pocketknives on planes. 
 
 FILE - In this Sept. 26, 2006, file photo, knives of all sizes and types are piled in a box at the State of Georgia Surplus Property Division store in Tucker, Ga., and are just a few of the hundreds of... (Associated Press) 
 
 TSA Administrator John Pistole announced Tuesday that airline passengers will be able to carry pocketknives with blades less than 2.36 inches long and less than half an inch wide. Souvenir baseball bats, golf clubs and other sports equipment also will be permitted starting next month. 
 
 The agency said the policy aligns the U.S. with international standards and allows the TSA to concentrate on more serious safety threats. 
 
 Unions representing flight attendants and other airline workers decried the change, and several relatives of people killed when terrorists hijacked four U.S. airliners on Sept. 11, 2001, criticized the move as well. 
 
 "I'm flabbergasted," said Sally Regenhard, whose firefighter son was killed at the World Trade Center. "I'm really disgusted by this latest news." 
 
 Regenhard said she recently had a container of yogurt confiscated by the TSA because it was a gel. "I'm just wondering why a yogurt is more dangerous than a penknife or a golf club," she said. 
 
 Debra Burlingame, whose brother Charles was the pilot of the plane that crashed into the Pentagon, said a pocketknife can be just as deadly as a box cutter, like the ones the hijackers used. Box cutters will still be banned under the new rules. 
 
 "When you're drawing a blade against someone's neck, they're quite lethal," Burlingame said. "This is bad news." 
 
 Burlingame said Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed told interrogators that the hijackers each used "a Swiss knife," a brand of pocketknife, to butcher a sheep and a camel as part of their training. The transcript of the 2003 interrogation was part of the 9/11 Commission Report. 
 
 Burlingame suspects the TSA decided to allow folding knives because they are hard to spot. She said the agency's employees "have a difficult time seeing these knives on X-ray screening, which lowers their performance testing rates." 
 
 Asked to respond, a TSA spokesman reiterated that "the decision to permit these items as carry-on was made as part of TSA's overall risk-based security approach and aligns TSA with international standards." 
 
 Several relatives of those who died on United Flight 93, whose passengers tried to wrest control of the plane before it crashed in Shanksville, Pa., questioned the policy change. 
 
 "What's the difference between a pocketknife and a box cutter, for crying out loud?" asked David Beamer, whose son Todd led the Flight 93 revolt with the words, "Let's roll." "I cannot see the upside to this." 
 
 Alice Hoagland, whose son Mark Bingham was another leader of the attempt to take back Flight 93, called it "a dreadful mistake to loosen the rules." 
 
 "We are increasing the chances of flight attendants and passengers being attacked while in the air," said Hoagland, a retired flight attendant. "This decision was made in order to make the TSA look a little better, to ease up on the standard so they won't have egg on their face." 
 
 Hamilton Peterson, who lost his father and stepmother on Fight 93, said, "I have enormous respect for the great work of the TSA; however, I am concerned this may undermine overall counterterrorism vigilance and may well prove to be dangerous to future passengers and crew who will inherit the danger resulting from this decision."
– The TSA is loosening up a bit on what passengers can carry with them onto planes. Starting April 25, it will once again be OK to bring small pocketknives (with blades no more than 2.36 inches long and a half-inch wide), along with some kinds of sports equipment—including golf clubs, hockey and lacrosse sticks, pool cues, and plastic wiffle bats, reports Bloomberg. The federal agency says those are among the items commonly confiscated that are no longer perceived to be a security threat. It wants to focus instead on items that can cause "catastrophic damage." The rationale isn't sitting well with flight attendants, reports the Los Angeles Times. "While we agree that a passenger wielding a small knife or swinging a golf club or hockey stick poses less of a threat to the pilot locked in the cockpit, these are real threats to passengers and flight attendants in the passenger cabin," says one union leader. The only thing this change does is make things easier for TSA screeners, she adds.