Airline Industry Will Pay the Price for the Foiled Terror Plot

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• JUDY WOODRUFF, NewsHour Special Correspondent:

  For more about these changes and their impact, I'm joined by Keith Alexander. He's a reporter and columnist who covers the airline industry for the Washington Post.

  Keith Alexander, thank you very much for joining us. Put yourself in the role of a passenger. Going forward, what do you expect to be different when you're getting ready to fly, either into or out of the United States?

• KEITH ALEXANDER, Washington Post:

  Well, Judy, there are several things that will be different. First of all, airlines are encouraging travelers to get to the airport at least an additional hour. On flights within the United States, that means two hours as opposed to one hour; flights out of the United States, that means three hours as opposed to two hours. So from that standpoint, definitely it's going to create some tension.

  Also, travelers should definitely look at the Web sites of their airlines to find out if their flight is operating, because, right now, airlines are pretty much in a wait-and-see mode going out from Friday and through the weekend.

  And mostly, Judy, what's also going to be different is their carry-on bags. Flying out of the United States into, let's say, Great Britain, you are not allowed to carry laptops, or cell phones, or BlackBerries. Obviously, you can't carry anything liquid.

  Same thing occurs for here in the U.S. You can't carry anything liquid, although you can carry in your carry-on bag your equipment, as in a BlackBerry and cell phone.

• JUDY WOODRUFF:

  So just to be clear, if you're going to and from Great Britain, BlackBerries, which are the little e-mail devices, laptops, anything, any other — what about iPods?

• KEITH ALEXANDER:

  Anything electronic, Judy, has got to be stowed, put in your checked-in bag, because again, with this terrorism threat, one of the questions was it would be activated by something electrical. So again, going into Europe, all of those electrical devices have got to be checked in your bags.

• JUDY WOODRUFF:

  Now is that all destinations in Europe or just Great Britain?

• KEITH ALEXANDER:

  That's all destinations, even going through Europe. For example, let's say you're flying from the U.S. into Europe on to, let's say, Asia or an African country. You still have to adhere to those European guidelines. Remember, Europe is under a code red, which is a much higher alert than in the U.S., so they are at the highest of alerts in Europe.

• JUDY WOODRUFF:

  Now, let's talk about the ban on liquids, as again these are any flights anywhere in the United States. So we're talking any — you know, we've heard it on the program up until now — hair spray, hand lotion, anything?

• KEITH ALEXANDER:

  Shampoo, gel…

• JUDY WOODRUFF:

  Cup of coffee?

• KEITH ALEXANDER:

  … cup of coffee. Judy, a lot of people — I have talked to some travelers, and they are saying — and some airlines — and they've noticed that people are getting through security, and they're going to a restaurant or a concession stand and buying a bottle of water or something of that nature. And they believe they can carry that onto the aircraft.

  No, you cannot. You have to drink it there at the gate. You will not be allowed to carry any type of liquid, any type of beverage whatsoever onto a plane. However, if you have baby formula or if you have medicine, and on the medicine bottle your name is printed, they will allow you to have that.

  So it's going to be a very interesting time. And airlines are already preparing for that. I talked to some people like Gate Gourmet, which provides meals and beverages for the airlines, and they are already putting additional beverages on planes just to prepare these people, passengers, so when they get there they can actually have something actually on the aircraft.