Chaos at Birmingham Airport over 100ml liquid limit: What can you bring in your hand luggage?

17.06.2024 - 22:55 / euronews.com / Angela Symons

The UK's Birmingham Airport saw major delays this weekend amid confusion over new rules about liquids in hand luggage.

Photos on social media showed queues that stretched outside of the airport from as early as 5am. Some passengers said they had to wait up to two hours to pass through security.

This travel chaos comes less than a week after new restrictions were introduced for liquids in hand luggage. Several UK airports had planned to increase the limit from 100ml to two litres with the introduction of a new scanning system.

But the installation of this system has been delayed, the 100ml rule is still in place and passengers have been left confused about what they are allowed to bring in their hand luggage.

The UK government originally gave a handful of airports approval to up the limit on liquids passengers can carry to two litres following the installation of new CT scanners.

It would have meant that from 1 June, the 100ml liquid limit would not have been in place at these airports. But many, including Heathrow, Gatwick and Manchester, missed the mark with installing new scanners due to logistical errors.

Others which had met the deadline had already lifted the 100ml liquid rule.

Now the UK's Department for Transport has said that the ban will be temporarily reintroduced at six airports: London City, Aberdeen, Newcastle, Leeds/Bradford, Southend and Teesside.

Airports say the sudden u-turn has left many passengers confused about what they can bring in their hand luggage during one of the busiest periods of the year.

Trade organisation the Airport Operators Association (AOA) said the latest changes had been "instigated with very little notice".

"It has also put airport operators in a challenging position, with very limited time to prepare for the additional staffing and wider resources that this will require, and no clear idea of when this issue will be resolved," chief executive Karen Dee said in a statement.

Birmingham Airport is one of the travel hubs that had upgraded to the new scanners but has had to keep the 100ml rule in place.

It said it has been limited on the use of its new high tech equipment due to an "outstanding regulatory restriction" which has meant limiting liquids to 100ml. Passengers can still keep their liquids inside of their bags while going through security, however.

"Despite the 100ml rule still being in place, we continually have non-compliant bags with liquids over the allowance which have led to inefficiencies of our equipment and resulted in extended queuing time for customers," it said in a statement.

The airport added that a non-compliant bag with liquids over the 100ml limit can add up to 20 minutes to each passenger's journey through security.

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