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Tuesday, August 23, 2005

Absolut Vodka as a Hijack Weapon

While coming back from Germany, I decided that I would buy the two bottles of booze that the government so graciously allows me to bring into the country without paying any duty, from the airport duty free shop. The duty free shops are accessible only after you've checked in, i.e after your check-in baggage is taken away. So anything you buy from the duty free has to be carried as cabin baggage.

We are allowed to carry bottles....glass bottles in our cabin baggage. Doesn't anybody feel bothered by this? The 9/11 hijackings were carried out using box cutters. You know what is a more potent weapon than a box cutter? Anybody who has seen a fight sequence from a Hindi film which takes place in a college canteen or a restaurant will know the answer. A glass bottle, broken such that its jagged edges turn it into a weapon.

Get my point? A few guys, carrying booze bottles in their cabin baggage, take out the bottles, break them, and use them to threaten passengers and the crew. That's a hijacking waiting to happen.