Travelers will no longer be allowed to carry lighters past airport security checkpoints as of April 14.
The ban is not an attack on smokers, but rather a way to prevent terrorists from igniting explosives on board an aircraft, Transportation Security Administration spokesman Christopher White said Monday.
'A lighter is an ignition source,' he said. 'Due to al-Qaida's continued efforts to create and improvise explosive devices, prohibiting lighters will reduce current security vulnerability.'
Lighters will not be allowed in carry-on items, and they already are prohibited in checked luggage because the U.S. Department of Transportation considers them hazardous materials.
The ban includes butane, absorbed-fuel or Zippo-type, electric/battery-powered and novelty lighters.
Passengers for now may carry up to four matchbooks past checkpoints, meaning smokers still can light up in designated areas, officials said.
The lighter ban comes more than three years after Richard Reid, known as the 'shoe bomber,' attempted to ignite explosives in his sneakers with matches on an American Airlines Paris-Miami flight in December 2001.
U.S. Senators Byron Dorgan, D-North Dakota, and Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, pushed the measure, saying if Reid had used a butane lighter he might have succeeded.
Sarah Slyker, a Boca Raton travel agent, flier and smoker, has no objection.
'I want to be safe, and I want everyone else to be safe,' she said. 'This is a new world today.'
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