Fellow Boardingarea.com blogger Steve Frischling over at Flying with Fish has posted details of the TSA Security Directive issued in the aftermath of NW 253.  These directives aren’t “classified” and the information is are considered security sensitive information, but this one appears pretty generic.  One thing did pop out at me, there is no additional limit on the amount of carry on luggage.  It would seem that those airlines which have posted limits took it upon themselves to do so.  The TSA did not direct those airlines to do this, they are doing it because of the requirement in the directive to physically inspect every piece of carry on luggage.  Fewer bags to inspect means less time spent digging through bags and gets everyone on the airplane quicker.  Not a bad idea, but the airlines that are implementing this restriction need to be honest about why they are doing so.

The requirement to disable live television programming and internet access is an especially huge blow to those carriers that have invested in such systems, not to mention companies like LiveTV, Row 44, and the rest.  We can only hope that this is relaxed in the coming weeks.  One other item of interest, the directive has an expiration date of December 30th.  We’ll see what happens after that.

I know it can sometimes seem like one hand doesn’t know what the other is doing at TSA.  And no, the actions taken that I am aware of do not impress me as all that helpful when it comes to real enhancements in security, but I have to hope that there are other more useful things going on behind the scenes.  That said, I’ll wait and see what happens in the next few days before getting too exercised about these changes.  Hopefully, things will settle down as the folks in charge at TSA get a handle on what they really need to do.  Hint: the stupid no pee rule isn’t useful.