U.K. moves to ease airport security
LONDON>> They are the rituals of modern travel: the frantic drinking from water bottles in airport security lines, the shampoos tossed into the trash, the fights over whether Bolognese sauce is a solid or a liquid.
And, as far as the British government is concerned, those days should come to an end by June 2024.
On Thursday, the British government said that new technology at its airports could let it substantially relax and speed up security checks, allowing liquid containers of up to 2 liters in hand luggage and doing away with a requirement to extract big electronics, such as laptops or tablets, from carry- on bags.
Some airports around the world have started introducing similar technology and scrapping the requirements, but experts said that Britain was ahead of the game in making a countrywide announcement.
“The U.K. are the pioneers,” said Jeffrey C. Price, a professor of aviation at the Metropolitan State University of Denver.
“We’re not aware of similar announcements/initiatives by other countries,” Perry Flint, spokesperson for the International Air Transport Association, a trade group for the world’s airlines, said in an email.
It is not the first time that Britain has made such an announcement. In 2019, the prime minister at the time, Boris Johnson, announced plans for all major British airports to introduce the screening equipment that would lead to the relaxing of the liquids rule by this month. The investment in new technology was delayed by the coronavirus pandemic.
Now, airports will have until June 2024 to upgrade their equipment and screening processes, the government said.
All airports in Britain will be required to adopt the latest technology in screening carry- on bags, said Laura Wilson, spokesperson for the Department for Transport, but the technology could vary between airports and be put in place at different times. Mark Harper, the transport secretary, said he would ensure the use of the security technology at all “major” British airports by the June deadline.
On social media, some Britons expressed relief about being able to avoid the $5 bottles of water at airport terminals. Others were unimpressed, arguing that they were not going to bring a half-liter of deodorant anyway. One Twitter user promised “not to spill my pint.”
As is the case at many airports around the world, passengers are currently allowed to have liquid containers of up to only 100 milliliters, or 3.4 ounces, in their hand luggage, and only after putting them in a small, clear plastic bag before going through security checks.
The new screening equipment, which uses a type of X-ray technology, essentially provides a 3-D image of the contents of a passenger’s bag, and makes use of what the government said were “highly advanced threat detection algorithms.” It was tested in some airports over the past four years, and the British government said it proved effective.
The government also said that the technology used in other countries may differ, so passengers should check with the airport that they are traveling from, or through, for advice.
The current rules on liquids were introduced in 2006 after British authorities foiled a terrorist plot to conduct a series of attacks on planes between Britain and the United States.
The plan, the authorities said, was to use liquids in drinking bottles carried in hand luggage and to combine them into cocktails that would explode while the plane was over the Atlantic Ocean.
Price, the aviation professor, said that the United States was also integrating more advanced technology in airport checks, but that the process was slow because the technology was expensive to buy and to install.
“We are years away from announcing a change to the current liquids rule,” R. Carter Langston, spokesperson for the Transportation Security Administration, said in an email.