Ace of Spades has lots of details, and a few very good questions. The one that came to my mind was about the baby formula exemption for carry-on liquids, as they are now restricting carry-on luggage (ah, security measures! And the whiny weenies of the far left still think this is a silly political game). It seems that, since the terrorist plot involved carrying on bottles of some peroxide-based volatile liquid disguised as sport drinks, the rule is now for no bottles of any liquid to be boarded. Except for that stuff parents bring on to keep their babies fed. And except for meds.
Anyhoos If the airlines simply got into the habit of making certain there's always at least a bottle or two of distilled water, then the parents only need to carry on a package of the formula mix. A little pouch of powder....
Not that that's much better, but a clearly marked tamper-resistant "individual serving pouch" from, say, Gerber or Carnation could help considerably. And then the exemption thing would be a less difficult hurdle. O'course, I'm sort of against very small children being seated on airplanes (knock 'em out and put 'em in cargo, just like all the other puppies, I say).
The other liquid exemption, it seems, is medication. That's a little tougher to bypass, and also tougher to test. Some of the meds I have had to take in the past, I can't just leave behind and get a refill scrip at the other end of a journey, and more than a few of them have strict limits on how much I can consume in a 24-hour period. If I were to take a agiant swig out of the bottle to demonstrate it was not some peroxide-based volatile substance, I'd be sick as a dog, just as though I'd swallowed a volatile peroxide-based substance. Overdoses are risky. And, what about my big-ass bottle of prescription eyedrops? Will I need to have them call my M.D. for details, or will they make me leave it behind because I refuse to drink it? I can't afford to buy the individual dosage little poplet-thingies (as if I can afford to fly, anyway, right now, for that matter).
As for "only essentials" in carry-on: I'm nuts. Essentials, for me, include anything to keep my mind from wobbling too widely on its unstable axis. This may include books, notebooks and pens, sketchbooks, stuffed toys, spare towel (it's a Douglas Adams thing), spare underwear (I've lost my luggage once too often), and so on. They can't pry my gigantic Felix-the-Cat magic bag of tricks from me. I bite.
I'll be sticking to surface transportation, I guess. Shank's mare, mostly.
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