We were turned back by security at the airport because it had a metal tip

On a recent flight from Newcastle airport, security stopped us from taking our walking sticks into the cabin. We are both in our 70s, have mobility issues, and have taken our Leki Wanderfreund walking poles on other flights without issue. We were told these were now banned, as the metal tip under the rubber bung could be sharpened and used as a weapon. The tip of my stick is 3mm long, and my wife’s does not have one at all. I offered to take the tip off, but they claimed something could be hidden in the shaft. We had to return through security and check our sticks in as hold luggage. Mine was then broken in transit. There were no objections to them on our flight home. Far riskier items, such as knitting needles and 10cm scissors, are allowed in the cabin.
FC, Stockton-on-Tees

Over at Heathrow airport, CD’s husband was encountering similar obstacles. The folding stick he relies on was confiscated, she says, by security staff citing “new” rules. It ended in a blunt metal stud beneath a rubber cap and he, too, had previously taken it on board. “It should have been possible to hand the stick to a member of staff at the gate to be returned at the other end,” she writes. “To remove a mobility aid without offering an alternative is discriminatory.”