This is a recap of a funny story that happened to our family a few years ago. Back in 2019, my son tried to smuggle a knife through airport security. This is definitely one of those stories that’s “funny ha ha” now but at the time added a ton of stress to an already stressful day.
The backdrop
In 2019, our family of 8 had a trip to Universal Studios in Orlando. Since my dad is retired military, he was able to buy a special kind of military ticket to Universal Studios that was around $220 / person but was good for 4 days for all of the calendar year 2019. So we went for 2 days at the park in January 2019 and then were set to return to Orlando in November 2019.
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Our flight left CVG around 6 p.m., so we arrived to the airport around 4:30 or so. We had hoped to get a bit of a snack dinner at The Club CVG before our flight but as you will see, that was not meant to be.
Split up at security
For some reason, not all 8 of us had TSA Pre on our boarding passes, even though we all have Global Entry and should have had PreCheck. I’m not quite sure what happened. I even went to the Frontier check-in desk to try and make sure our Global Entry numbers were in the system and have them reprint our boarding passes. The guy at the check-in counter was noticeably annoyed with me but went through the motions. When they came out still with no TSA Pre, we decided to split up at security. I took one of my daughters with me through the “regular” line while the rest of the family went through the Pre-Check line.
When I got through security, I met up with the rest of my family and my wife immediately alerted me to a problem. Apparently one of my sons had forgotten that he had his Scout multitool in his backpack (pictured below for reference)
As a side note, apparently this must run in the family as my dad tells me the story of when he went through airport security with a giant Leatherman knife in his bag. When confronted by the TSA agent, my dad replied “Man I’ve been looking ALL OVER for that thing!” :-D.
Finding a place to mail it back
My son was grateful that it was not the Swiss Army Knife that he had made himself on our trip to the Swiss Army Knife headquarters in Brunnen, Switzerland, but he still did not want to lose it. The TSA agent said that if we wanted, we could mail it back to ourselves. He led me back out of security, and then pointed (vaguely, as it turned out) towards where we could mail it. He said when I was done that I could just find him directly so as to not have to go through security again.
So I make my way over to where he had indicated, only to find a single blue USPS dropoff box, by itself. I checked the hallway it was in, only to find nothing. So I’m thinking “Well what in the heck am I supposed to do with this?!?!”. I have no box, no labels, no stamps – not even a pen to write my address on! I don’t know what the TSA agent was thinking other than “what do I need to do… to make this man go away…”
There’s literally nobody else over here, so I make my way back to the ticket counters, and the first lady I see is at the Delta counter. Thankfully there are no customers there, so I just go up to her and ask her if there is a mail center or anywhere I can mail this back to myself. She says – “oh we can ship it to you – just give me your boarding pass.”
Her friendly demeanor vanished when I told her that actually I wasn’t flying Delta. She said there was nothing she could do for me, and sent me over to Frontier. So I hustle over to the Frontier counter, where I get the same surly guy that I made re-print all of our boarding passes. Ah sweet karmic irony… He said the cutoff time for checking bags on our flight had passed, but suggested that we could leave it with baggage claim downstairs.
So I make my way down the escalator to the baggage claim area and find the Frontier baggage claim office. At CVG at the time, Frontier had a contract baggage office shared with Allegiant and Air Canada.
I went up to the lady manning the baggage counter and explained to her the situation. She said that they couldn’t hold anything like that. She asked me “Who told you that we could hold this?” I told her that the Frontier check-in agent had said so. Finally I waited her out and she agreed to take it. She took my name and returning flight information, and I ran back through security. Made it for my flight without a problem but we did have to miss out on our sweet sweet dinner at The Club 🙂
Getting the knife on our way back
On our way home, we stopped back at the baggage desk and…. nobody was there. I passed the time commiserating with another lady whose suitcase had been completely destroyed (also by Frontier). We had to wait for probably 30 minutes before the same lady showed up. Once she did, she remembered me and brought out the knife, and we were on our way.
I know that *I* at least learned the lesson not to try to smuggle knives through security. Whether my son also learned that lesson? Still up for debate…
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
Three times in my past travels I forgot I had my Swiss Army knife in my pocket until I got to security twice in Portland, OR, and once in Albuquerque. Not wanting to give the knife to TSA and not knowing where to mail it, I decided to hide the knife each time. In Portland I hid it in a concourse pet store the first time and in a news/snack shop the second. In the pet store at the rear of the store was a rectangular basket of drawings of dogs. I placed the knife behind all the pictures at the back bottom of the basket. A week later when I returned it was still there. In the news/snack shop there was a display of logo coffee mugs on a bottom shelf near the back of the store. I put the knife in a mug at the back of the shelf. Again, a week later I retrieved it. In ABQ I had the same situation. There I found a painting on a wall in the upper part of the concourse that was mounted with against a rectangular outcrop. I placed the knife on the top of the outcrop behind the painting completely out of sight. When I returned six months later, it was still there and I retrieved it!
Not quite the amount of time that went by as in your case but we went to a baseball game on a train so no car to hide things in. This was a carabiner that also had a knife function. Not wanting to lose it my adult daughter just went to some bushes and hid it. After the game, she retrieved it.
Even though we had our Nexus card which gives us pre-check 4 times in a row my husband didn’t receive pre-check. When I asked they told me it’s purely random and no one is guaranteed to have it every time.
Yeah – I have heard them say that before but I think that’s mostly a cover story for IT screwups 🙂
Whoa, what a story, haha. Pretty cool that they let you mail it back to yourself though. I’ve lost a fair few things to airport security but think I’ve learnt my lesson now!
Went to a baseball game where they were checking bags for weapons. My daughter had something that could be a weapon, maybe like a multi tool. So she threw it in the bushes near the stadium. After the game we retrieved it. Not quite the airport drama but she didn’t want to lose it either
That’s hilarious – though not nearly as easy to do at an airport 🙂
I brought a tiny pair of scissors, about 1″ blades. Legal by TSA standards but illegal by the standards of another country where I had a connecting flight. They didn’t make it up but it’s online if you really look.
I went back to landside and the airline said they could check it in for about $200 (extra bag cost). This is a really good pair of scissors but not $200 worth. I didn’t think of giving it to lost and found but maybe if I label it and said I “found” it they might not steal it but keep it for a few days.
What I though about was to hide the scissors. I will not reveal where. I put it in an envelope with my name and dates of future travel and hid it. One week later, it was still there when I retrieved it.
Yes – my wife had a small pair of scissors that she used for cutting cross stitch yarn that were confiscated during our travels somewhere in Asia (I forget where exactly – maybe Japan? Singapore? Hong Kong?) She was bummed
Right after 9/11, airlines would not allow nail clippers. I had the bad judgment to try to smuggle it. I shouldn’t have but it worked. I went through security a second time but removed all metal except the nail clippers. No watch. No belt. No glasses. Not even a zipper after changing to sweat pants. Just a nail clipper. I didn’t hide it in my shoe because that suggests intent to smuggle.
I hope the statute of limitations is less than 20 years.
I have a giant pair of scissors that I got free. It was 11 pm or later and the airport was really quiet when my flight arrived. The security checkpoint to the concourse already closed. While exiting the concourse, I saw the bin with discarded stuff. Inside was a very nice and strong pair of scissors with about an 8″ blade. I took it home with me and use it to this day for yard work.