Necessity Mothers Another Business

There's little as frustrating as finding out, with half an hour before your flight, that you can't take your Medal of Honor with you in your pocket. What do you do -- give it to the security people, trust it to your checked baggage, or skip your flight, hoping that a rational supervisor will appear in the chain of command, and get you on the next bird out of town?

With those options pretty much long shots, you look for another way around the problem. If you're lucky enough to be stuck at Charlotte-Douglas International Airport in North Carolina, you have a viable option: CheckPoint Mailers Inc. Raleigh-Durham is on board; some 40 other major airports are already in negotiations, with ten nearly ready to go, including in the country's premier port of entry.

Heather Lowry (above), a former USAirways ground employee, frustrated by the ambiguous and ever-changing whims of airport security gnomes, figured there must be a way to not lose her belongings, or miss her flights. She asked what so many of us have asked: "Is there a way for me to mail my stuff?" When she was told, "no," she didn't do what most of us do (give up) -- she decided to start a mailing business.

The hardest part of getting started, Lowry told the Associated Press, was figuring out how to build a self-service mailing station that would meet the TSA's specifications, especially since they don't really have any guidelines. Eventually, all parties settled on a 500-pound, concrete box for the transactions.

You go to the box, fill out a label, drop your item and $6 cash (or check, or credit card voucher) into a self-sealing plastic bag, and go to your flight. (International shipments cost $12.) There's a two-pound limit; and, of course, things that can't be mailed -- like your handgun or pepper spray -- can't be mailed. Insurance is optional -- it can cover those expensive or sentimental items.

Each evening, a CheckPoint employee empties the big concrete box, and puts the items in postable envelopes, mails them, and gives the host airport 10%.

The airport seems to like it, and Lowry is fixin' to become a millionaire, by giving the people what they need -- another workaround for a government mandate.

FMI: judi@kroegerpr.com