New Security Guidelines for Airline Travel

In response to the Christmas Day 2009 terrorist attempt on a plane landing in Detroit, the Department of Homeland Security has issued these new security guidelines for airline travel in or to the United States of America:

(1) Carry on luggage can no longer be carried onto flights and must be checked. All electronic devices must also be checked. And all toiletries and other liquids must be checked.

(2) All checked luggage will be sent via UPS to your final destination on a nonpassenger flight.

(3) All clothing and jewelry must be removed before passing through airport security, and checked through with your luggage to your final destination.

(4) Special jumpsuits will be issued for airline passengers to wear that will appear opaque to ordinary vision but will be see-through to airport security personnel and airline flight crew equipped with special glasses (available for $25.95 on the internet).

(5) All airline blankets and pillows will now also be made of see-through material. Flight attendants may administer a strong sedative to put a passenger to sleep for the duration of the flight, if they deem the passenger to be unruly, creepy, or just plain annoying (such as socialite Ivana Trump or public official Chuck Schumer).

(6) The seat-back tray table and seat-back magazine pouch will be removed. All meals in flight will be served on clear plastic trays without benefit of metal or plastic utensils or napkins. Eat with your hands and, as no reading material or electronic devices are allowed, enjoy the in-flight movie which will be broadcast over the PA for everyone onboard to hear without headsets: Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel.

(7) In the unlikely event of a water landing, your seat-back can be used as a floatation device. In the not quite as unlikely event of midair disintegration of the airplane due to explosion or fire, your seat-back can be used as a parachute. Just buckle in your jumpsuit.

(8) All airplane bathrooms will be fitted with see-through windows using the same see-through material as the jumpsuits. At the discretion of the flight crew, passengers using the bathroom for more than 10 minutes may be jettisoned.

(9) The empty cargo hold of every airplane will hold a special ops team, with snipers deployed in the empty overhead bins strategically throughout the airplane. All flights will carry enough fuel so that they can at any time be diverted to Gitmo, or to the prison in Illinois slated to replace Gitmo.

(10) Airline passengers should refrain from fighting or subduing would-be suicidal terrorists while flight attendants douse the terrorist with water or fire extinguishers: "It is just too embarrassing to us at DHS that, despite all our screening efforts, heroic action by passengers and flight crew members is the only security method that actually works."