Hair straighteners among items removed by airport security over summer

Each year, thousands of restricted items are confiscated by airport security.

We were in the cafe at Hayes Engineering in Oturehua when I saw it. So cute. So handy. So potentially lethal, but I was oblivious to that at the time.

In the 70s, my solo mum had the same kind of Russian doll hammer with four screwdrivers cleverly concealed in the handle. And this one had bling.

Our daughter, home for the holidays, had been getting into some DIY back in London, borrowing a power drill from work to build a bedroom shelf in her flat.

So, the next day I snuck back to the cafe and bought the hammer for her as a goodbye present, stashing it away in my bag.

Then I promptly forgot all about it, which is how I ended up being caught with a dangerous weapon in my possession by the baggage scanners at Dunedin Airport.

The officer on duty was sympathetic but firm. No, I couldn’t take a hammer on board. No, not even a pretty one.

Airline passengers are prohibited from carrying hammers – even pretty ones – in their carry-on luggage, for obvious reasons.

At that moment, surrendering the hammer seemed inconceivable, all tied up somehow with the looming prospect of having to let our daughter go, on her flight back to London in just a few more days.

Back I ran through the security gates and down the escalator, where I threw myself on the mercy of staff at the Air New Zealand service desk.

With just enough time to spare, they tracked down my check-in luggage and arranged for the offending item to be slipped inside. It felt very James Bond as I swaggered through to the departure gate.

(Momentary confusion over the name on our booking almost saw the hammer despatched on a flight to the US, which would have been a disturbing discovery for some unsuspecting traveller when they got home and unzipped their bag.)

I was lucky. That kind of special service isn’t standard practice, especially at the height of the summer holiday season when staff are under pressure and tensions often run high.

Each year, all manner of contraband is red-flagged by Airport Security, which removed more than 130,000 restricted items in 2022 after new rules banning loose batteries were put in place.

This summer, one of the most commonly confiscated items has been battery-operated hair straighteners, which are classed as dangerous goods unless the battery can be removed or put into flight mode. Now wouldn’t that put a dampener on your holiday.

Passengers who refuse to relinquish their items won’t be allowed to board.

Warwick Burr, the deputy group manager of operations at Aviation Security Service, says staff are trained in de-escalation techniques to deal with any verbal or physical aggression.

“Unfortunately, that’s probably got worse over the years and interestingly enough, it’s a worldwide trend,” he says.

“We do get some irate passengers where they have something they don’t want to give up or they’re anxious about travelling, so there’s a heightened reaction.

“But incidents where things really get out of hand are extremely rare and I’m pleased to say we didn’t have any of those over this [holiday] period.”

I’ve lost a few bits and pieces over the years: an oversized bottle of sunscreen I’d forgotten about; scissors stashed in my toiletries bag; a roll of strapping tape my partner had used to pack up his bike box for a flight out of Brisbane.

Burr is surprised to hear about that last one – rolls of tape aren’t on the restricted list here.

“Maybe that’s an Australian thing.”

Well, it happens to the best of us. Burr was in his first job at Aviation Security, as manager at Wellington Airport, when his wife triggered an alert as they were being processed for a flight to Melbourne. In her carry-on bag was a set of old bone-handled knives from a dinner set she was taking over as a gift for their daughter.

“I just wanted to say, ‘Yeah, she’s not with me,’” he laughs. “I was able to pop out of the screening point and quickly take them down to the office and store them there until I got back. Of course, not everyone’s that lucky.”

Burr says people carrying a valuable or “personally significant” item that’s not allowed on board are given the opportunity to go back into the airport if there’s time, to see if it can be posted or put into their check-in baggage.

“For really valuable items, and this is more the exception than the standard rule, we will hold something and store it until arrangements can be made to get it transported somewhere else.”

At home in Auckland, the hammer was there when I unzipped my bag. It’s now in London, making holes in the wall of our daughter’s Battersea flat.

The other day, I cleared out our kitchen drawers and found Mum’s old hammer, which I’d kept from her tool kit after she died a few years back. When I unscrewed the base, it still had all its pieces intact.