Extra security means long waits at airports

GROWING lines of irritated travellers snaked through US airports yesterday as people waited hours to reach security checkpoints, then had to dump their water bottles, suntan lotion and even toothpaste following the discovery of a terror plot in Britain.

Guards armed with rifles stood watch in several airports, and the governors of California, New York and Massachusetts said they were sending National Guard troops to bolster security.

The hours-old ban on all liquids and gels from carry-on luggage left little option but to throw away juice boxes, bags full of makeup, perfume and bottles of liquor and wine. Baby formula and medicines were exempt but had to be inspected.

“They’re ridiculous, but that’s part of the price you pay for travelling during a time like this,” Julius Ibraheem, 26, from Chicago, said as he stared at the long lines leading toward the checkpoints at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport.

At Baltimore/Washington Airport, security workers opened every carry-on bag that passed through one terminal, and all the morning flights there were delayed.

Lines were longer than usual at San Francisco International Airport, and red plastic bins were quickly filling up with cups of coffee and water bottles.

Kathy McMahon, 49, of Mill Valley, California, was helping her daughter stuff sunscreen, makeup, contact lens solution and other liquids into every corner of her half-dozen suitcases to be checked in as she headed off to college.

At Kennedy Airport in New York, Sonia Gomes De Mesquita, 40, waited nervously to board a British Airways flight home to London. Her family had urged her not to fly.

“You wake up and what are you going to do?” she said. “The flight is today.”

At Newark Airport in New Jersey, the security checkpoint line for Terminal B, home to most international flights, stretched the entire length of the terminal — roughly six football fields — and was barely moving.

Phil Orlandella, spokesman for Boston’s Logan International Airport said rather than packing toiletries in carry-ons, airport officials asked passengers to put them in checked baggage, which is screened by equipment that can detect explosives.

Chicago aviation commissioner Nuria Fernandez said the tighter restriction will remain in place for at least 12 to 72 hours.

Bill Poland, 61, was flying from San Francisco to New York with his wife and son. He held up a tube of lip balm and shouted to a security officer who told him he couldn’t bring it on the plane. He said he recently had a cancerous growth removed from his lip and the anti-bacterial ointment was necessary treatment.

“In an hour or two my lips are going to start burning and turning purple. And I’ve got five to six hours on a plane without this,” he said.