As air travel picks up in Pittsburgh, TSA reminds travelers: 'Know what's in your bag'

As air travel picks up again, Transportation Security Administration officials at Pittsburgh International Airport are reminding travelers to double check their carry-on bags for some of the more innocuous items that can cause headaches at security checkpoints.

Across the country, TSA officers are screening between 2 and 2.3 million passengers daily — still lower than the roughly 2.5 million daily in the pre-pandemic summer of 2019. At Pittsburgh International, passenger volume is about 72% what it was pre-pandemic, officials said.

“Know what you can bring,” said Karen Keys-Turner, the TSA’s federal security director for Pittsburgh International. “Know what’s in your bag.”

That goes for prohibited weapons such as guns, knives and brass knuckles to water bottles and full-sized shampoo and lotion.

Any liquids — anything that can spilled, spread or pumped — has to be less than 4.3 ounces. All bottles have to be in a clear, quart-sized bag.

That also includes food. Among the hundreds of water and soda bottles that Pittsburgh TSA officials put out on display Monday – collected from checkpoints in about three days — were jars of salsa, honey and a container of crab salad.

“In every line, somebody’s got something,” Keys-Turner said.

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TSA officials noted that while there are far fewer business travelers as air travel picks up, the number of vacationers has grown.

“Travelers who are headed out on vacation typically are not as familiar with security checkpoint protocols, especially when it comes to knowing what is permitted to be carried through a security checkpoint,” Keys-Turner said.

In Pittsburgh, domestic air travel more than doubled in the first two months of 2022 compared to the first two months of 2021 — 950,042 compared to 448,709.

Air travel plummeted in early 2020 as the covid-19 pandemic swept across the world, and two years later it is still has not fully recovered. Despite the decline in passengers, TSA officers have been catching more guns per person in Pittsburgh and across the country.

In 2021, officers stopped 21 travelers with guns at the airport — the same number of firearms stopped in 2017 despite a pandemic-driven decline in air travel. The Allegheny County Airport Authority said roughly 2.5 million fewer travelers passed through the airport in 2021 compared to 2017.