TSA-approved locks: Not a sure thing

A word of warning to travelers who might think they can avoid security problems by buying and using locks that are marked and sold as being approved by the Transportation Security Administration. The rhetoric goes that if you use a TSA-approved lock on your luggage, you do not have to unlock your bag before you check it in, and if TSA does decide to inspect your bags, it will unlock—and then re-lock—the TSA-approved lock, rather than cutting the lock and then throwing it away.

The truth of the matter—at least in my experience—is that the rhetoric is just so much rhetoric—there’s not a word of truth in it. On my recent trip to the mainland, I lost two of the three TSA-approved locks that I had put on my luggage bags.

I lost one lock on the leg from Detroit (first landing in the mainland) to Boston. I had been told to unlock my bag, I said I had a TSA-approved lock, and was then told I did not need to unlock my bag, but when I got to Boston the lock was gone, and a note left inside read that TSA had inspected my bag.

On the return trip, I had two pieces of checked luggage, and put TSA-approved locks on both of them. I even scotch-taped a note on the larger bag, to indicate that it had a TSA-approved lock, and asking that it therefore please not be cut. I checked them in at LAX, and again, was told that it was ok to leave them locked.

But when I got to Saipan, not only had the lock on the larger bag been cut off, but the zipper pulls through which the lock was fastened were also cut—so that I cannot again lock the suitcase unless I get the zipper pulls replaced. And there was no note inside.

According to my daughter Stacey, it is apparently possible to watch one’s bags go through inspection at some airports. She said she left her TSA locks on, but when the inspectors wanted to search her bag, no TSA master key was available. If she had not been there to unlock the bags herself, the locks would have been cut—even though she was using TSA-approved locks.

So the bottom-line is: Don’t trust TSA inspectors to unlock your TSA-approved locks. Stay and watch the inspection, so that you can offer to unlock your bag if—as seems typical—the TSA inspectors do not have a master key to unlock it themselves.

Ruth L. Tighe
Tanapag, Saipan, MP 96950