Five-year-old boy 'heartbroken' after snake toy is confiscated at South African airport

The stuffed snake toy that South African airport officials deemed inappropriate for the cabin. Photo / Twitter, Nicole Fritz

A five-year-old boy was left "heartbroken" after his soft toy snake – a gift from his grandmother – was confiscated at a South African airport.

According to South African newspaper the Times, the toy was taken during a security check at Johannesburg's OR Tambo International Airport on Friday (local time).

His mother, Nicole Fritz, tweeted about the incident and posted a picture of the snake toy.
"This is the soft toy python taken from my son by @Airports_ZA . He is heartbroken," she wrote. "It was his fifth birthday present, given only last week, from his grandmother."

"The justification from @Airports_ZA is that it is a replica but as you can tell only a half-wit would mistake it for the real thing. It looks only like what it is – a child's plush toy," she continued.

Speaking to South African newspaper The Times, Fritz said her son had been wearing the snake toy around his neck while in line for security – to the delight of other passengers.

"It's not a rubber snake. It's a soft toy. People were kind of laughing around him. Nobody thought for an instant it was real. Nobody could think it was a lifelike representation," she said.

However, when the family reached the front of the queue, a security guard told them the toy would not be allowed on the flight – and they were given the option of throwing it away, or checking it into their luggage.

"We had been waiting in the queue for a long time. We had very little time to make it to the gate," she said.

The justification from @Airports_ZA is that it is a replica but as you can tell only a half-wit would mistake it for the real thing. It looks only like what it is— a child’s plush toy.

— Nicole Fritz (@Nicole_Fritz) November 10, 2018

Fritz decided to attempted to put the snake into their checked-in luggage, but found that check in for their flight to Cape Town had already closed.

She wrote on Twitter that while she had intially told security they could arrest her, "ultimately I decided that I was not prepared to sacrifice my liberty in defense of soft toys everywhere".

So she threw the beloved toy away – leaving her son wondering what had happened.

"He keeps asking where it is and when we're going to pick it up. We said that it's with the pilot and has gone on a trip."

The Times had approached Airports Company South Africa (Acsa) for comment, but had not yet received a response.