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American Morning

Security Alert

Aired August 10, 2006 - 06:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back, everybody. You're watching a special edition of AMERICAN MORNING as we bring you breaking news that has begun really in Great Britain but has rippled its way right here to the United States. We're talking about terror.
British officials are saying that they have disrupted a plot to commit mass murder. That's a quote, "a plot to commit mass murder." They said mass murder on an unimaginable scale. They believe, in fact, that they have foiled the plot. Twenty-one people are now under arrest.

The plot is -- has ripple effects here as the U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff says the U.S. is raising its threat level as well for flights that are coming in from Britain to the United States to the highest level red. It's the first time that red alert level has been invoked in the Homeland Security system for other flights that are coming in to the United States. For all other flights that are in the United States or coming into the United States, in fact that's going to orange, that is elevated.

Here's what we know at this hour. It appears there is a focus on hand luggage, because the word we're getting, not only in London but also here in the U.S. from the statement from the Homeland Security's secretary, is that they are prohibiting liquids and beverages and hair gels and lotions being carried on board. The focus there liquids. Also, apparently, carry-on luggage.

And we're being told that people are allowed to bring their keys, but not their key fobs, leading our analyst of just a moment ago to speculate that there may be some sense of some kind of explosive being initiated by a key fob electronically. Very few details that we know at this time.

Want to get right to CNN's Adrian Finighan. He is at Heathrow with an update on what he's been seeing there.

Big surprise to the travelers, Adrian, obviously.

ADRIAN FINIGHAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. Organized chaos I think is the best way to describe what's going on over there in the main terminal building here at Heathrow Airport this morning. It's mid-morning. It's busy. It's August, of course the peak holiday season here, many people looking to get away.

They've turned up at the airport this morning to find these extra security measures are in place. They're having to offload all of the items that they were intending to take aboard the aircraft as hand luggage and try to repack them in their main bags. If they can't do that, they're having to put all of these things into polythene bags that airport authorities are handing out to them and literally just tie them onto their main bags to go into the luggage hold. It's caused people a great deal of inconvenience, not to mention the delays that it's causing for people as they wait to get through security checks.

Once they get to the main security checkpoints in the airport, they're having to be X-rayed as you normally would be. They're having to have their shoes examined once again. It's all preventing aircraft taking off on time. There's a backlog of flights waiting to go here at Heathrow Airport.

O'BRIEN: So the airport is not closed, certainly, but there are big restrictions on flights going in and out. What do we know about those flights, especially those that are coming to the U.S.?

FINIGHAN: Well the airport itself has been closed, all incoming flights that are not already in the air. Now at this time of the day you can look out across the skies of west London and see three or four aircraft stacked up in the sky waiting to land. There's one just coming in now as I speak. At the moment, though, that's it. You see one aircraft coming in every five minutes or so.

Now at a busy airport like Heathrow, at this time of the day you could see aircraft taking off on the other side of the airport every two minutes or so. Hardly any aircraft seem to be going out. While we've been standing here I've maybe seen, I don't know, half a dozen, 10 aircraft in the last hour. That means that aircraft that are landing here are having to wait for berthing spots because so many aircraft are still on the ground having been unable to get away.

The schedule here at Heathrow is so tight, which means that people who have already had long transatlantic flights, who have had flights from Asia, Australia, from Africa are having to sit on the tarmac in their aircraft before they can be disembarked.

O'BRIEN: Adrian Finighan for us this morning. He is at Heathrow.

Adrian, thanks.

TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: We want to follow this terror plot story to JFK Airport here in New York City. It is a major entry port, as you know, for travelers from London and other parts of the world. Significant delays are expected with this heightened security.

AMERICAN MORNING's Alina Cho is at JFK for us.

And, Alina, good to see you. First of all, have you noticed any impact from this increased security?

ALINA CHO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well we have noticed certainly some police officers roaming around and a police squad car behind me. Not sure if they've ramped up security to the extent that they want to just yet, Tony. But what we can tell you is that if you are planning to take a flight out of any U.S. airport today, including JFK, you will want to get to the airport early, very early, and bring a lot of patience. Passengers are being urged to come to the airport, not one, but two hours before their flight.

One thing to note, and you've been hearing this throughout the morning, the Department of Homeland Security is saying that due to the nature of the threat no liquids can be carried onto the plane. That includes beverages, hair gels and lotions. All of those items will have to be checked in.

Security, as I mentioned, is being tightened at airports around the country, especially at checkpoints. And all of these changes are to take effect at 4:00 a.m. local time. So they are already in effect across most of the country already.

Now, if you are flying from the U.K. to the U.S., of course the rules are much tougher. No electrical or battery-powered items will be allowed to be carried on board. That includes laptops, cell phones, iPods, even remote controls. Passengers are being told only to bring the barest essentials, and that includes passports, tickets, wallets and even then, as you heard just a moment ago, they will have to be brought on in clear plastic bags.

In London in fact they are saying don't come to the airport unless you have to. They are not yet saying that in the United States. But if you do plan to fly today, expect long lines, Tony, and a lot of frustrated passengers. Incidentally, I should tell you that the first British Airways flight from London is expected to arrive on time, we just checked the board, at 11:15 a.m. Eastern Time.

HARRIS: Well, Alina, I have to ask you, so if you're waking up this morning, or if you've already traveled to the airport unaware of all of these new restrictions and kind of the list of banned items, what are you being told to do, for example, with your laptop, with the liquids that you may have? Are you just being told to leave them behind?

CHO: No, no, in fact what you're being told is that those items will have to be checked in. You're not going to have to, at least as far as we know, leave these items at the airport or have somebody come pick them up. What you are being told is that those items will have to be checked in. Remember the threat involves explosives being smuggled on through carry-on luggage. And so that is why they are taking extra precautions, Tony, with anything that is carried onto the plane.

HARRIS: That's great. So, OK, so you don't have to leave them behind, just check it in your luggage. The other point is we know that, for example, you mentioned that there is a flight from the U.K. scheduled to land on time very shortly here. We also know that folks getting off of that flight then connect to other flights throughout the system to travel across the United States. Any sense that there will be an extra level of security between the flight landing here at JFK, for example, and your connecting flight? CHO: No sense yet. But remember, DHS has elevated the risk to code orange, or high risk, for any flights within the U.S. and any flight bound for the U.S. and code red, or severe risk, for any flight heading from the U.K. to the U.S. And so you can be sure that DHS federal officials and internationally they will be looking at those flights extra close -- Tony.

HARRIS: Very good. And, Alina, once again, that flight scheduled to arrive from the U.K., I guess that's Heathrow, when is that scheduled to land at JFK?

CHO: Eleven fifteen a.m. Eastern Time. My producer just rushed inside and checked the board. In fact, there are three flights expected in. I believe one in the 11:00 a.m. hour, two in the 12:00 hour, and all three of those flights, at least so far, are expected to arrive here on time -- Tony.

HARRIS: OK, I wasn't truthful, one more quick question, have you been able to get an indication from people you've been able to talk to or just sort of observe that people have gotten the word and are starting to make adjustments?

CHO: Well you can bet that they see the TV cameras here.

HARRIS: Yes.

CHO: And they are starting to get the word. You know remember it's very early in the morning.

HARRIS: Yes.

CHO: People are just starting to arrive here. It's not as busy as I expected it to be, to be perfectly honest, but you can bet that as the hours,...

HARRIS: Sure.

CHO: ... as it gets later on in the day, it will get much busier here at JFK.

HARRIS: OK, AMERICAN MORNING's Alina Cho for us at JFK Airport here in New York City.

Alina, thank you.

O'BRIEN: Let's recap for folks who are just joining us. Here's what we know this morning. Metropolitan police in Great Britain say they thwarted a plan to blow up flights headed from the U.K. to the U.S., maybe as many as nine planes. One security expert told us that that might be the number of those targeted.

Also this morning, 21 people in custody. Police say most of them were arrested around London. None of those arrests apparently seem to be happening at any of London's two main airports. The arrests are the culmination of a major covert counterterrorism operation lasting several months. A source close to the investigation says this is the real deal. Police say more searches continue under way. Some people have predicted the number of arrests could go to 50.

Department of Homeland Security here in the U.S. announcing a ban on liquids being carried onto airplanes, things like beverages or hair gels or lotions or baby milk. It's an indication, even though the Homeland Security secretary says there has been no specific threat here, an indication, though, it is still a big concern.

In Great Britain, it appears that they are stopping almost all carry-on items from coming on board that plane. People have to put things in clear plastic bags before they're able to board their flight. Dozens of cancellations of flights across Europe.

Here in the U.S. as well, passengers are being told to expect long delays at airport security checkpoints, two hours is what you're being told now if you've got a flight today. Department of Homeland Security is raising the U.S. threat level for aviation to orange or high. That's for all flights that are incoming to the United States or in the United States. It's red or severe for flights that are coming from the U.K. to the U.S. That is the very first time that level has been raised to red.

Erwin Wolber is stranded at Heathrow Airport. He is a guy who is from Naples, Florida.

I'm going to assume, Erwin, on vacation. He joins us by phone. Erwin, thanks for talking with us this morning.

ERWIN WOLBER, STRANDED AT HEATHROW AIRPORT: Here.

O'BRIEN: Give me a sense of how it is right now where you are.

WOLBER: Well we're in line, waiting in the British Airline, trying to figure out how we're going to get home. And the people seem to be very calm, you know joking and very calm. It's a delay that's going to be anywhere from three to five hours or maybe even two days.

O'BRIEN: Wow!

WOLBER: But...

O'BRIEN: Two-day delay and calm people is sort of unusual. Let me ask you what they're telling you. What we've heard is that you're not allowed to carry items on. Anything has to be put into a clear plastic bag. Explain to me how that's working.

WOLBER: Right. Well they've told us -- in fact I've heard more from you than I've heard from anybody at British Air that they say everything has to go through the lines -- the luggage that goes in the plane rather than carry on, nothing carried on. Now from you I've heard that you can take some things on in clear packages, but we haven't been told that yet by the airline.

O'BRIEN: When did you get to the airport this morning and do you feel like you're getting information about the terror threat or is it just sort of chaos, organized chaos, but chaos still? WOLBER: Well we heard -- we were on a Princess cruise and we came from the docks and they brought us to Heathrow. We got off the bus. We had no information other than one woman said she heard they arrested 18 people that were trying to blow up planes leaving for the States.

But when we got here, it was chaos. I mean we couldn't get on the elevators. There wasn't any information from anybody. But then, as we've been waiting in this line, more and more information has started to come forward as far as the nature of the events that were impeded and what we were going to be doing and how long it's going to be taking us. But as far as any exacting information as to when we can get home, we haven't found any of that out yet.

O'BRIEN: So now you're waiting in a line and that line is to determine how you're going to get home. Is the flight that you were on canceled or just delayed and what's your plan?

WOLBER: Well they've canceled all the flights. Anything that was going out today has been canceled. They mentioned three flights that were going out to Helsinki and Amsterdam and one other destination. They were going to go out after 1500 but then there may be more delays after that. So we haven't been told anything about the flight that we were on.

O'BRIEN: So what are you doing in line? I mean what are you trying to do?

WOLBER: Well, we're trying to find out what we're supposed to do with the existing tickets we had and what we were going to do as far as changing flights. If we can get a direct flight, obviously our flight today is going to put us in a position where we can't do anything in our destination, so we were going to go from there to Amsterdam and then from Amsterdam back to the States. So we're trying to find out if we can circumvent that and go directly from here at Heathrow back to the States.

O'BRIEN: So if indeed this is not a two to five-hour delay, but this is a two-day delay, as you mentioned when we first started talking or when, what are you going to do?

WOLBER: We don't know. We really don't know. We're going to wait in line to find out where we're going and how we're going to get there and then make plans. They told us that British Air had no responsibility as far as accommodations were concerned because the British government shut everything down. So unless I can get a hold of Tony Blair, I don't know if I can get anything, any hotel accommodations or anything.

O'BRIEN: I'm going to guess that's not going to happen today. Let me ask you a question, is there a sense or do you feel a sense that this is being handled and you feel confident and comforted by the security measures that you're seeing or do you feel differently?

WOLBER: Well I think it's great. I think everything they did to prevent these people from doing these dastardly things is wonderful. And if it takes me a couple of days to get home alive, so be it. But I'm all in favor of checking everything that they checked and checking their phone numbers and their e-mails and everything. That's how they catch these guys. So you know more power to them.

O'BRIEN: That kind of attitude is going to get you through the next two days, Erwin, I'm guessing.

HARRIS: Yes.

O'BRIEN: Erwin Wolber, good luck to you. Listen, we want to keep talking to you as your days go on. And hopefully it won't be too long or too difficult to get back to the U.S. Thanks for talking with us, we appreciate it.

WOLBER: OK, thank you. All right, bye-bye.

O'BRIEN: Tony.

HARRIS: Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff suggesting security officials are not sure the plot has been completely thwarted.

CNN's Jeanne Meserve is live at the Department of Homeland Security in Washington. She's been working her sources this morning for us.

Jeanne, good morning.

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN HOMELAND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Tony.

A U.S. official telling me this morning that they do not believe there is any connection to anything or anyone in the U.S. currently at this point in time. That is currently, of course. The investigation is ongoing. The AP also reporting this morning that the terrorists were targeting three airlines: United, American and Continental.

As you have mentioned earlier, the threat level for flights coming into the United States from the United Kingdom has now been raised to red or severe. That is the highest level in the threat advisory system. We have never seen any portion of our infrastructure put on red before.

The rest of commercial aviation is put on threat level orange. That is something we have all experienced before. But the rules this time are a little different. As has been mentioned, they are banning certain kinds of liquids and gels. I was just checking the TSA Web site. It says no liquids or gels allowed in carry-on luggage. This would include shampoo, suntan lotion, creams, toothpaste and things of similar consistency. It says that there are certain exceptions, including baby formula and medicines, but those must be checked for inspection at the Web site.

And it also says that if liquids are purchased after you go through the checkpoint, let's say you pick up a cup of coffee while you're at the airport, that will have to be consumed before you board your aircraft. They are advising travelers to pack very lightly, to arrive two hours early at the airport, to cooperate, of course, with the TSA personnel and also to report any suspicious activity.

You can imagine that this is just going to create great difficulty at U.S. airports today, particularly because people are just waking up to this news. They have had no chance to prepare, to go ahead and pack these things in their checked luggage at home -- Tony.

HARRIS: And, Jeanne, I think we want to be accurate and fair to the audience in sort of characterizing what it is we're seeing. So at 8:00 this morning we're going to hear from the Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, but tell us who else is going to be there and what that says about this threat and how seriously the United States government apparatus is taking it?

MESERVE: Well you're going to see the whole roster of top law enforcement officers for the United States, as you've mentioned, Michael Chertoff, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and also FBI Director Robert Mueller, also the head of the TSA, Kip Hawley. They will all be there to answer questions that people have about this situation.

It is an indication, as if we needed another, that this is being taken seriously, very seriously indeed. There are going to be a lot of questions for these individuals about who was involved in this plot? Who are these people who were arrested? How many more are they expecting to be arrested? Is there an al Qaeda link? Is it something that was homegrown? How long have they known about this plot? And of course other questions about any precautionary security measures which may be taken in the aviation sector or possibly in others -- Tony.

HARRIS: And, Jeanne, what were those air carriers that authorities believe might have been the target?

MESERVE: Well this is -- again, let me say this is according to The Associated Press, the three carriers were United, American and Continental airlines.

HARRIS: OK.

MESERVE: That's what's being reported by them.

HARRIS: Our Homeland Security correspondent Jeanne Meserve for us.

Jeanne, thank you.

MESERVE: Yes.

HARRIS: And again, at 8:00 Eastern this morning, Michael Chertoff, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and FBI Director Robert Mueller will hold a news conference. And we will, of course, bring that to you live.

O'BRIEN: As we've been saying of course huge implications for travelers around the world, airports across the U.S. as well.

Let's get right to CNN producer Henry Schuster who is in Atlanta today.

Henry, good morning.

HENRY SCHUSTER, CNN SR. PRODUCER IN CHARGE OF TERRORISM: Good morning.

O'BRIEN: Let's talk a little bit about those implications.

SCHUSTER: Well you know what's happened now is that there are people in doing airport security around the country who have been basically caught flat footed by this. I spoke to someone at a major metropolitan airport who had a plane that had already landed from London but expects one later today. And they're waiting to hear from the TSA how they're supposed to handle it when these people arrive at the airport from London.

What they're doing in the meantime is that they're looking back themselves, in absence of information that they're getting, they're looking at previous plots, something that we talked -- we heard about the last hour. But you know al Qaeda has a history of doing things like this. It dates back to the early 1990s and it's in their playbook. And that's why they're looking at things like shampoos, these liquid gels, because in the early 1990s, as far back as then, they talked about using explosives. They actually carried out -- in Asia they carried out tests on using explosives on airplanes like that.

O'BRIEN: You know the question for me is so is it homegrown or is it al Qaeda? And one of our experts said well al Qaeda is now more of a philosophy maybe than anything else and so it can easily be both. What are your sources telling you at this point?

SCHUSTER: Well I think that they're looking at it as a distinction without a difference here, because what we recently learned about the London subway bombers is that these were -- it's homegrown in one sense. They are British citizens. They were British born. They're Pakistani origin. But what it turns out is they went to Pakistan in -- they went to Pakistan in the months before they blew up the subways and they got explosives training at an al Qaeda camp in Pakistan.

So what this means for investigators is one of the things that they're looking at as they're using their code words this morning in London, which you pointed out last hour, one of the things they're looking for is have any of these people who have been arrested, and they expect more arrests by the way, have any of these people who have been arrested have they traveled to Pakistan? Is that something that could be conceivably thought of as the trigger that led to the suddenness of the arrests now after months of surveillance?

O'BRIEN: People were told at Heathrow, at least, not allowed to bring key fobs, that sort of the back part of your key. They can bring the key but not the fob on board. What does that signal to you?

SCHUSTER: Well again, it's the possibility of timer. They're looking for explosives, detonators and timers, or at least things that could be used for all three of those. And they have to go back and they have to look at what they already know. And what they already know is that liquid explosives have been used before. Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, had a setup for his heel for the detonator. So they have got to look at all of those.

And they've got to look at what can be assembled in flight because that's been the pattern in the past. What could be assembled in flight and used in flight, not a pre-made bomb, but something that could be taken to a restroom, through hand luggage and possibly put together.

O'BRIEN: One of the things that struck me, Henry, was the sense that there was this investigation going on, sounds as if it was going on for many months, and then suddenly quick action where they said something happened, did not elaborate on what that something was, where they no longer could keep it in just the investigation phase. Can you fill me in on -- that seemed surprising to me. Was it surprising to you as well?

SCHUSTER: Well there's always something that seems to bring these things to a quick end. It's happened in early 2004 in another plot in Britain with a bunch of young men who were charged with, again, one of these homegrown plots. They were charged with getting ammonium nitrate, which is explosive -- the same thing that was used in Oklahoma City. And quickly they were rounded up. And they thought that there was something that indicated to them that something might be happening imminently.

And it's their own best guess. I mean they walk a very fine line between trying to gather as much information as they can and trying to prevent something from happening that they already knew about. And remember the British authorities earlier this summer got a lot of criticism for a raid that they conducted because they said that they were looking for -- they thought that they were looking for chemical weapons. And it's still not entirely clear what the nature or the legitimacy of that particular plot was.

But these plots are coming at them in waves that we probably don't even understand in this country. There have been several of these major arrests. And you know they -- with this sort of dimension of British citizens who are being looked at, it's a very dangerous situation for them.

And then they have, you know, they have messages that they hear from Osama bin Laden where he says there are plots under way that you don't know about. And then they have this recent videotape from Ayman al-Zawahiri in which they make a big deal of how the London subway bombers were trained in Pakistan by al Qaeda and got explosives training. And they tried to use those as they figure in you know when do we make an arrest as to how much information do we try to get to see how many people are involved.

O'BRIEN: Back here in the United States, the Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, as you know, has said that there was no plot known of here, and yet the release that they put out goes on to say these same limits on liquids, et cetera, are going to be in place as we see right now in London and across the U.K. It's a little bit contradictory, isn't it?

SCHUSTER: Yes, it is; but again, it's caution. This is all about risk management here. I recently spent some time with an anti- terrorism unit and they emphasized that at the end of the day it's about risk management. At what point do they say, hey, we've got to stop, we've got to bring the wheels to a halt and start looking for one of these threats and take it very seriously. It's not that they're not taking them seriously before, but it's -- you know as Richard Quest talked about it, it's a different thing entirely to go to a red level, stop plane flights out of Heathrow and you know bring the economic system really to a halt in certain places.

O'BRIEN: Henry Schuster joining us by phone from Atlanta.

Henry, thanks. We'll continue to check in with you throughout the morning. Appreciate it -- Tony.

HARRIS: Well these increased security orders may not be lifted any time soon.

CNN's Richard Quest joins us now from Los Angeles.

And, Richard, Henry just mentioned here just a moment ago it's one thing to live with an orange alert level. To live in this airline sector with a red or severe level is a totally different situation, isn't it?

RICHARD QUEST, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, of course. What happens is that the system doesn't function.

HARRIS: Yes.

QUEST: It can't function. By definition, it is going to grind to a halt. What they will now start to do is work out what is the realistic level, what are the precautions that need to take place?

Let's look at the U.S. experience post 9/11. First of all, you had a complete shutdown of all aviation for several days. Then you start to rebuild the system. You had the construction, you had the formation of the TSA, you had the security valids (ph). You had all the airport scanners for checked baggage, as well as hand luggage. You have these rules about shoes on, shoes off.

I can tell you, Tony, there are still many airports in the world where you don't take your laptop out of your briefcase to go separately through the scanner. And what Heathrow, the BAA and what they'll be doing in London is working out what is necessary for a long-term plan.

HARRIS: Yes. Richard, there are some folks, maybe not many, but there will be some folks today who will wake up and look at this and say, my goodness, here we go, what a huge overreaction. You travel all over the world, does this feel like the real deal to you? Do these precautions seem appropriate to you?

QUEST: Tony, I can only say that knowing the chaos, knowing the implications, this must be very serious indeed. You don't stop flights from Heathrow on a whim and a rumor. We've had tanks before driving up to Heathrow Airport, we've had major security alerts, but this is above and beyond it. And I think that you raise a very valid point, we have to continue business. I would say to anybody who is planning to go to Britain in the next couple of days, don't, basically,...

HARRIS: Yes.

QUEST: ... if you can avoid it, not because you're at risk or because something could happen, but you're going to give yourself grief in long lines, waiting queues and disturbances. So if you don't have to travel to the U.K. for the next few days, just wait.

HARRIS: You know expand on this notion of how interconnected the airline system is right now. We know what happens when there's a bad storm and you know the domino effect that happens, you can't get out of an airport and it affects airports across the country. Take it to this level with what's happening at Heathrow and Gatwick.

QUEST: Well, no, it's not just Heathrow and Gatwick, it's Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton, Manchester. It's -- I mean we're focusing on them because they're the two busiest airports.

HARRIS: Sure.

QUEST: But you're right, Tony, you've hit it spot on. This spider's web, as we spoke of earlier, this interconnectiveness, and it all goes wrong very fast. It doesn't happen slowly. Let me give you an example. You have now got all these people turning up at Heathrow Airport and all of a sudden they're told they can't take their hand luggage. So what do they do, they check their hand luggage.

HARRIS: They check it.

QUEST: Now the luggage system has got to cope with an extra 20,000, 30,000, 40,000 bags a day. The baggage handlers have to cope with all of that. The luggage doesn't get to the plane. The plane is delayed. It doesn't -- you know how this works, and -- or doesn't work, as the case may be, and that's why -- people often say to me you know why do I find aviation fascinating? And this is why, because there is no other industry like it where when you shove that big piece of wood in the spoke the whole thing grinds to a halt thousands of miles away.

HARRIS: Yes. Hey, Richard, don't we now have to reevaluate security on airlines again, what you can and what you can't take on a plane right now?

QUEST: Yes. Yes, we can only do that, Tony, when the likes of you and me don't want to schlep big garment bags...

HARRIS: Yes.

QUEST: ... and wheelers and are prepared to check them, because that is what this is really all about. Heathrow and Gatwick have been trying to clamp down for a long time on this, these ridiculous steamer trunks that people try and put in the overhead compartment these days. And until people like us are prepared to say hands up, you know we'll check it, we'll just take the barest minimum, that's going to be a problem.

HARRIS: And so now you have got to check your shoes because of Richard Reid. Now you, because the terrorist may be thinking about, may be thinking about developing liquid explosives, the notion just has to be simply you, from this day forward, let's say, you can no longer take on your soda pop, you can no longer take on in a carry-on bag your shampoo, that's it as of this day. Does that make sense?

QUEST: It does make sense because we didn't know that was the threat before.

HARRIS: Yes.

QUEST: And we know that's the threat now. Now an interesting question though, Tony, what happens to all those bottles of duty free? What happens to things that you buy in -- I mean this is maybe not as important in the U.S. where you know there isn't as much international, if you like, travel. But elsewhere in the world which has these vast -- Dubai, for example. And you have to remember one other point. All carriers flying to the U.K. have to follow this rule. I'll give you an example.

Any carrier flying to the U.S., whether it's a U.S. carrier or not, no lighters for passengers, you have to throw your cigarette lighter away. You know this.

Now, of course, when I go to LAX today to go home, the airline I'm flying with will have to obey those rules. And that's the problem. They're all trying to work out how to obey these new rules.

HARRIS: Yes. Yes. OK.

CNN's Richard Quest for us.

Richard, thank you. Travel safely, if you can get out. Thanks.

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