TSA: No corkscrews with blades in carry-ons

klm-landing-airplaneAttention wine lovers: The TSA has retracted its decision saying it’s OK to carry corkscrews that have a foil-cutter attachment in your carry-on luggage.

Corkscrews never were banned (neither were knitting needles or nail clippers, despite reports you may have heard) but under previous rules you could only take the fairly useless kind with no handy blade attachment. The good models, which have a tiny little knife that swings out and can be used to cut the foil covering the top of the bottle, were a no-go. As the TSA put it in a 2009 blog post, “Fancy schmancy corkscrews with knives, no. Cheap corkscrews with no knife, yes.”

But under new rules announced in March, “fancy schmancy” corkscrews got a pass.

The change, which was to have taken effect April 25, 2013,  was part of a general relaxing of rules intended to allow TSA agents to focus on the big things and stopping sweating the small stuff.

Unions representing flight attendants didn’t agree, saying even small blades could be dangerous in the wrong hands.

Here’s the complete list of things that were briefly off the prohibited list: Knives that do not lock, and have blades that are 2.36 inches or 6 centimeters or less in length and are less than 1/2 inch in width, novelty-sized and toy bats, billiard cues, ski poles, hockey sticks, lacrosse sticks and two golf clubs.

For more on what the TSA will and won’t allow, go here.