Illinois Airport Fountains Finance Mailing Of Confiscated Items Back To Owners

Jan. 25--BLOOMINGTON - Airline passengers can regain some confiscated items if flying through the Central Illinois Regional Airport, a service unique to the Bloomington terminal.

Though pocket knives, pool cues, certain tools and other personal items are prohibited on planes, the airport will mail items of sentimental value back to airline customers free of charge. CIRA pays the postage with money people throw in the fountains near the terminal's front doors.

"That way, the money from the customers gets returned to the customers," said Carl Olson, airport executive director. "It adds good value for our customers. People don't have to lose their grandfather's pocket knife or whatever the item of sentimental value may be.

"The interesting thing is that only 20 percent of the people are from Bloomington-Normal," he added. "It's fun for us because we get to see where everybody comes from."

About 60 percent of packages are mailed within Central Illinois, including Peoria, Champaign and Decatur, which also have airports, Olson said. The remaining 20 percent are mailed to out-of-state passengers.

"The farthest place was Beloit, Wis. Someone must have really wanted to fly out of the Central Illinois Regional Airport to drive all the way from Beloit."

That's a 150-mile drive one way.

To have an item returned, passengers place the item in a padded envelope, write down their address and slide the envelope into a locked box next to the security gate. Everything passengers need is right next to the checkpoint.

The program, which began nearly two months ago, is seemingly unique to Bloomington.

Aaron Batt, the Transportation Security Administration security director for the Bloomington, Champaign and Decatur airports, said Decatur and Champaign didn't have such service.

Lara Uselding, a spokeswoman for the federal Transportation Security Administration, said some airports have leased terminal space with mail carriers like FedEx or UPS, but the service isn't at the security checkpoint and it's not free.

Typically, passengers have three options, she said. They can take the item back to their car or the person who dropped them off at the airport. They can go to a post office and mail it to themselves, or they can put the item in their checked luggage. But not everything is allowed in checked luggage either, Uselding said.

Otherwise, items surrendered at airport checkpoints are gone for good.

"We have 12.6 million confiscated items across the nation, so I doubt someone is going to get an item back," Uselding said. "We probably wouldn't be able to find it."

Of course, some items are not returned from the Bloomington airport either. Lighters, for example, cannot be mailed, Batt said.

Items such as ammunition are explosives or held for investigation.

"If it's illegal, you're not getting it back," Olson said. "It'll be confiscated and you'll have to face the authorities. If it's a personal item, you know you can mail it back to yourself."

To this point, the airport has mailed 50 packages at a cost of $44.20.