Washington ? Some passengers still haven’t gotten the word about what they can and can’t take on planes. Seized at airports during the Thanksgiving crush: 15,982 pocket knives, 98 boxcutters, six guns and one brick.

Still, transportation officials said the airport chaos predicted by many never occurred. Passengers waited less than 10 minutes on average at security checkpoints during the first holiday travel season since an all-federal work force took over screening.

Since the 9-11 attacks, the government has tightened restrictions on what can be taken aboard a plane.

Robert Johnson, spokesman for the Transportation Security Administration, says many holiday travelers are inexperienced fliers and don’t realize they can’t take knives, scissors, fireworks or ammunition onto planes.

The TSA says that at the 38 busiest U.S. airports over the Thanksgiving holiday, 1,072 clubs or bats were confiscated, 3,242 banned tools and 2,384 flammable items, including a welding gun in Boise, Idaho. Another 20,581 sharp objects – such as scissors, ice picks and meat cleavers – also were stopped at the checkpoints. Someone tried to bring a toy cannon made of live ammunition onto a plane at Chicago O’Hare International Airport.

Though TSA can’t make year-to-year comparisons because the data collection method has changed, the six guns taken from 38 airports in six days compare with 813 firearms taken from 429 airports in the eight months from February to September. During that same period, 783,670 knives and 31,064 boxcutters were seized, compared with 15,982 pocketknives and 98 boxcutters over Thanksgiving.

The TSA hopes to better educate people about what they can take onto airplanes by Christmas, when air travel will be complicated by new gate check procedures and many more checked bags screened for explosives.