Well, I have just come back from a vacation to Maryland this weekend. It was wonderful. I would have to say that terrorism was the furthest thing from my mind! I was more frightened about the turbulance!
Here are the tips from my experinece:
1. Security is tight, but not as tight as most people think that it is. You are subject to randon searches and they can be tedious, however, they are not that bad. We just made jokes out of them.
2. Try to eliminate the carry-on baggage. If you have to ration out a little extra time for check-in and baggage claim, just do it. If you have a lot of carry-on stuff, the time that you would have spent checking bags, etc., will be wasted at checkpoints AND we will have to stand there while your personal business is rifled through and exposed.
3. Be patient and take it all lightheartedly. Try to get to the airport early in case you have to go through these things. If you are rushing to make a flight and it's down to the wire, checks and everything else will annoy you and that makes it worse.
That's all I have!
P.S. My favorite tip is this and I had to let my family in on it when we flew this weekend.
**** Keep you eyes on the flight attendant. As long as they look calm and are performing as usual, all is cool. If the flight attendents start acting/behaving funny, that's when you should worry. ****