The U.K. is eliminating liquid rules for airport security. Some airports, where new CT scanners have been rolled out, no longer enforce limits on bringing liquids into the terminal. The rest, such as London Heathrow, are working towards this under government directive.
However the country’s Department of Transport abruptly announced without explanation that the 100ml liquid rule for carry on bags will be temporarily reinstated, so regional airports that have already dropped it will have to start enforcing liquid bans again Sunday morning.
This change affects Newcastle, Leeds Bradford, London City, Aberdeen, Southend, and Teesside airports – although it could also affect the coming rollout of a detente in the War on Water at larger airports as well. (Birmingham Airport has the new CT equipment but still enforces the 100ml rule because of slot regulatory approvals.)
All airports were supposed to lift the liquids rule a week ago, which was an already-extended deadline. Currently it’s expected that even London Heathrow will allow passengers to bring bottled water and shampoo airside by mid-2025 (under threat of financial penalties).
The U.K. government claims the move is not in response to a specific security threat.
Flip-flopping in the dying days of the British Tory government.
The water cartel (mafia) is back in business. Overpriced water will once again be a major money maker. Of course, some of that money needs to be slid to corrupt government officials.
The kind of thing I would expect from US DHS and the TSA hooked to lording over passengers under any and all excuses possible while demonstrating their incompetence time and time again. But given what I have seen of passenger security screening at LHR, give it to the UK for competing with the TSA in the worst regards possible.
On the bright side there is a certain security lane at FRA T1 where you can bring any liquid size. My wife and I brought 4 small Prosecco bottles and a bottle of wine through without a problem.
Then drank them on the plane of course (delta’s pre departure Prosecco in J class is not drinkable). Cheers to FRA!
Maybe this guy wished he stayed at a LHR Marriott instead on an LGA Marriott:
https://us.yahoo.com/news/poker-player-robbed-250k-gunpoint-202450139.html
OK, writing from England.
I saw this story this morning in the Daily Telegraph. I can’t say that I think it will make any difference in practice. The UK’s airport security experience, even in Fast (sic) Track makes the US TSA look like a bunch of choirboys. It is a generally a slow and awful experience.
By my observation, most of the folk trying to bring down ‘planes are adherents of the religion of peace. Not too many Jews or Christians vying for that title, excepting as we might, DB Cooper. In which case, enquiring minds might ask why, in England, just about every airport security line is staffed by the brothers with beards and no mustaches.
What’s wrong with that picture????
Nothing, of course. It’s undoubtedly one of the many benefits of multiculturalism Tony Blair told us we would enjoy.
Woolfie is in the line of bigots moaning about racist profiling not doing what racist bigots want it to do? Inquiring minds may want to know, but I already know the answer.
Racist profiling is bad for society and bad for security. And yet, in keeping with its character, racist profiling is what US DHS has encouraged over the years while wasting money and time like crazy. If the UK harmonized even further with the US on passenger security screening, it would make LHR and other UK airports more miserable experiences than they already are.
Heathrow security is the worst in the world, one more reason to avoid that airport at all costs.
Airline crew members are subject to the same rules as passengers for liquids, and if a crew member is non-compliant, i.e., with a liquid over the 100 ml or 300 ml for personal consumption during the flight, they are documented and treated like a criminal. As a crew member myself, I always double checked my bags to make sure that everything was in order.
Then Heathrow security subjects the crew members to “random” searches of suitcases and they take every item out of your suitcase one by one, putting them in the dirty bins that the bags go in, and then vigorously swab the inside lining of your suitcase for explosives or whatever. It’s a time-consuming process and there’s no sense of urgency because airlines actually have a schedule. Sometimes my crew made it to the gate at boarding time due to the lengthy process.
Meanwhile, flying from France, Spain, Italy and Argentina, the crews bring back bottles of wine, perfume, etc. and the flights all make it back to the US safely. I will not fly to the UK as a crew member anymore, and many of my colleagues won’t fly there either, because of ridiculous security procedures.
LHR airport security screeners — especially at T5 — make TSA look like angels. But one place where UK airport security screener attitude gives LHR a run for the money in terms of bad attitude: MAN. Boy, those folks too need a real attitude tune-up.
Airline crew go through special outposts and are driven by bus to the gate airside after clearing security.
There are so many ridiculous stories of crew security at LHR, they’re too numerous to post here. I will take TSA in the US over LHR security any day.
If a crew member has all of their liquids the right size of 100 ml or less, in their liter-sized bag, but one of the items falls out accidentally and is in their tote bag, they will be pulled aside and reported to the airline’s corporate security. Then the Captain and purser of the crew are pulled aside and security gives them a dressing down, asking if they had briefed the non-compliant crew member on liquid protocol for LHR, and told that it must not happen again. And then the 1-oz. hand lotion, moisturizer, eye drops or whatever it is, is confiscated and thrown out.
You can travel with confidence knowing that they’re keeping the world safe from a small tube of toothpaste. Stupidity at its best. Then the flight leaves late because the crew has been detained during the whole fiasco.
@GUWonder: How many 82-year-old English grandmothers have attempted to hijack or blow-up a plane?
But heaven forbid that we devote extra attention to those that are members of the groups that have.
It’s more important to be inclusive and politically correct, isn’t it?
With the exception of India, my worst experiences through security by far are at T2 LHR; once they reduced me to tears.
Advocates of racist profiling are racists. No less so when they bring up 82-year old English grandmothers as an excuse for racist profiling.
Racist profiling advocates also don’t really care about:
1) how implemented racism increases the systemic security risk level by undermining trust levels from targeted demographic groups subject to racism in the name of “precrime”/“security”; and
2) how racist profiling can even open or increase gaps in security by diverting resources away from the baseline security level in order to focus and execute on the stupid assumption that passenger “identity is security” when it comes to securing airplanes (and airports) from passengers and passenger belongings with prohibited weapons/explosives/incendiaries.
@ GUWonder. You paint security concerns with a broad brush . . . it’s unfortunate that you need to rely on the race issue for the sake of your argument and ideology instead of facts.
Based on personal experience, I will agree with the statements about LHR and India airport security. However there is a reasonable good explanation; the British invented bureaucracy and India perfected it.
One Trippe is of his rocker and that explains why he both: 1) imagines broad brushes when trying to confront tailored and targeted criticism; and 2) struggles to deliver against arguments that don’t enable and support his support for racism at airports.