Last Thursday’s announcement that London police had uncovered a terrorist plot to bomb flights to the US using liquid gel explosives resulted in heightened security measures at all airports, forcing travelers to abandon all liquid items before boarding planes. The Transportation Security Administration became the site of choice to find information on what items were permitted in carry on luggage: visits to the TSA site increased by 1,365% on August 10 versus August 9, 2006. Other government sites that also saw increased visits were Department of Homeland Security, up 263%, and the Federal Aviation Administration, up 142% from August 9 to August 10. You can see from the chart below that TSA’s visits almost reached the level of visits to Northwest Airlines. The continued high level of traffic to TSA since last Thursday indicates that travelers are still looking for information on prohibited carry-on items before they travel.

Hitwise clickstream data shows sites in the Aviation category were the largest sources of traffic for the TSA website, accounting for 26.7 percent of TSA’s traffic for the week ending August 12, 2006. The largest Aviation category referrers of traffic to TSA were Southwest Airlines and Northwest Airlines accounting for 6.7 percent and 2.2 percent, respectively, of the upstream traffic to TSA.gov.
While both Southwest Airlines and Northwest Airlines linked to TSA, not all airlines did. I looked for information on the restrictions before packing for a trip to New York on Monday, and found it strange that my airline did not link to the TSA page which provides a comprehensive list of items prohibited in carry on luggage. It seems to me that airlines and travel agencies would post notifications prominently on their websites, and could possibly alert travelers with impending trips about the restrictions. I was shocked to find that I could not bring a sealed bottle of water on the plane, as I am obsessive about hydrating during flying. The TSA list was incredibly helpful, as I would have been very disappointed had I been forced toss my $45 face cream or $20 mascara at the security gate.