JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Jacksonville International Airport officials announced Thursday important information for people traveling in and out of JAX in the coming months. This is to make things as smooth as possible, for the summer travel surge.
As travelers head to the TSA Checkpoint area, they’ll hear construction noise in the background.
That construction coupled with parking concerns are reasons why Vice President of External Affairs at Jacksonville Aviation Authority, Michael Stewart said travelers need to get to the airport two hours earlier this summer.
“May have to have a little more time in your schedule to make it to your flight on time,” Stewart said.
The Vice President of External Affairs said with the summer travel season expected to increase, he wouldn’t want the summer travel surge to delay anyone from getting to their destination on time.
News4JAX also asked Stewart if the air traffic controller shortage would impact this airport.
In recent weeks, airlines like United and American announced they’d temporarily cut back on flights from affected airports. Stewart responded “I would have to defer to the FAA.”
Sari Koshetz, a spokesperson for the TSA, laid out multiple items that were intercepted by TSA agents on Thursday. Those included small pen sized tasers, mallets, BB-guns and brass knuckles.
She said on average each month JAX intercepts between 800 to 1200 pounds of things in carry-ons that shouldn’t be there. “I’m not sure why you need to travel with this item {a saw) but if you do need to travel with this item it needs to be in your checked bag,” Koshetz said.
It’s an issue she said could be prevented if people simply looked online about what they are allowed to bring on board versus what needs to be checked.
“What you see on the table are items that in most cases that could have been placed in your check bag or passenger could have gone back to their car,” Koshetz said. “We would walk you out of the check point to the public side and leave it in your car. The problem happens when people get here too late. So if they get here too late they say oh I don’t have time to do that.”
Koshetz also said so far this year TSA agents at JAX have stopped 27 firearms from going through the checkpoint.
Last year, they stopped 73.