TSA weighs letting PreCheck travelers bring full water bottles through airport security

TSA PreCheck members at select airports could soon be allowed to carry full water bottles through security checkpoints, a potential departure from longstanding airport liquid restrictions that the Transportation Security Administration is actively weighing. Senior administration officials described the proposal to CBS. It would apply only at airports equipped with advanced CT scanners capable of distinguishing water from other liquids, and no participant airport list has been released.

The scanner gap

Existing CT scanner technology is capable of screening full liquid bottles and identifying their contents. TSA has not acquired it at the scale required for even a limited PreCheck-lane rollout, CBS reported, and the agency does not currently have the funding for such an expansion.

TSA PreCheck costs less than $100 for a five-year membership, per the agency, and already allows members to use expedited lanes and skip removing shoes, belts, and light jackets during screening. A water bottle exemption would add to those benefits, but only at airports where the required scanner hardware exists. The practical result is a rule that differs by departure city.

What to watch

The proposal has not been formalized. Whether it advances depends on a funding path that has not been publicly detailed, and qualifying airports remain unidentified. On aviation-themed Reddit threads, some travelers said the prospect would push them to enroll in PreCheck. Others flagged the airport-by-airport variation as a likely source of confusion. One commenter described the reflex that years of checkpoints have built: "I am conditioned to carry an empty bottle through security." Another captured the broader skepticism about shifting rules: "What will they yell at us about now that we can bring water?"

Fox News Digital contacted the TSA for comment. No agency response had been reported at the time of publication.