I loathe airport security. Here’s what I should be taking in my carry-on

We’ve all been there: the night before seemed like it would stretch on forever, fold itself into a dawn that might never come, holding every promise of the long night, the eternal party. And then it’s 09.03, and your alarms go off like crazy – phone, front desk, animal instinct – and suddenly you’re at the airport, beetle-browed, far too warm, eking through security and it’s now that you really have to ask yourself: what’s that in my pocket?

Airport security contains multitudes. For most travellers, it’s the necessary evil, the paint-drying minutes spent with arms tensely folded, one eye boring into the back of the nice lady who is being patiently asked about the Thermos of guandolo, flagon of water and gallon of breast milk in her carry-on. Oh and: “Is that a roller blind you’re carrying, madam?” The other eye, meanwhile, beadily regards the trays clattering down the conveyor. Perhaps yours contains the nice watch that you shouldn’t have had to remove but were asked to anyway, a cap from Lock & Co Hatters that looked so much smarter before it was just squashed by the flaps of the X-ray machine and a Montblanc pen which – who knows? – might yet have made it safely through. It’s still called “security”, though, so maybe it’ll be OK. It’s bloody awful, though, isn’t it?

Besides the sensible desire to inaugurate a secondary filter-lane next to Fast Track – perhaps (in the style of “EU” and “non-EU”) titled “Morons” and “non-Morons” – what should you be able to take through security that you are currently barred from transporting in the cabin of a commercial flight?

Well, you’ll have doubtless bought some regional produce on your holiday: Istrian honey, jam from Alentejo, olive oil from Patmos, a wheel of Reblochon from Haute-Savoie, some Chiang Mai massage oil, a small-calibre ivory-handled ladies’ pistol from Louisiana, some challenging German… magazines. If ever there was a more wholesome panoply of locally made acorn-fed goodness that, on making landfall in your home, instantly summons the magic and memories of your holiday, then I’d like to see it. But woe betide you bring any of that lot through security! Whoa there, slow down. Cool it.

You could politely look away and hope your exciting bags trundle through the scanner unmolested – but that only invites the slowest and most boring form of torture this side of filing a tax return. Your holiday haul would open the floor to medal-winning jobsworthiness masquerading as diligence. A man with a cotton wool swab, a pinched expression and a uniform that’s surely flammable will offer a withering look and ask: “Is this your bag, sir? Mind if I have a look, sir?” 

That sinking feeling is the worst. Everything removed, inspected, peered at, pored over. YES, YES, IT’S A JAR OF HONEY WITH A PLASTIC SEAL AROUND IT. NO, I DON’T TRAVEL WITH A VACUUM-PACKING MACHINE TO SEAL JARS OF SEMTEX DISGUISED AS WILD HONEY – IN FACT, I’D GO SO FAR AS TO CALL IT “TANGY” AND “COMPLEX”, A WORLD AWAY FROM THE STUFF AT SAINSBURY’S – is what you’re shouting on the inside while officer J Obsworth invites you to throw it all in the bin and purchase a €42 jar of similar from the shop that’s suspiciously-right-there in Departures. You almost miss your flight.

It needn’t be this way. On a trip to report on the winningness of Taiwanese pop stars some years ago, I bought and brought back a foldable bicycle – a Taipei must-have – as hand luggage. This was enabled by good old Eva Air not giving a toss and using the if-it-fits-it-fits stowage philosophy. I’ve brought quite big artworks back from Hong Kong, rugs from Morocco, a hoard of pokey Mezcal from Oaxaca. And more besides (is that root ginger in your luggage, sir? Why, yes!). 

I have friends who’ve done the whole bringing-home-a-poor-ickle-cat-from-Greece thing and it’s a bad idea – even if it were a dog. But, man alive, I’d love to usher a massive, bright-plumed, aggressively territorial parrot from Ecuador through an airport and home. I’d have started the language lab over in Latin America, teaching Cortez the macaw the basic linguistic repertoire of a Millwall football hooligan (so he fits in) and take it from there. It would obviously be cruel to put him in a cage in the hold, plus I need a profoundly rude emotional support parrot, so in he swoops to perch on seat 7B. With his suspiciously large, very padded collar. And what’s that in my pocket? Bird seed. Very fine bird seed. For God’s sake, give us a carry-on-baggage-shaped break.

Robert Bound is a contributing editor at Monocle. Read more from Rob here.

Further reading:
– Cathay Pacific’s cargo hub at Hong Kong International Airport is a telling insight into the state of the global economy  

– Can building Africa’s largest airport turn Ethiopia’s fortunes around?

– When it comes to Dulles airport, Trump might actually have a point