26 ms·

Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

632 points by robotsliketea 8mo ago

deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
jbellis 8mo ago
Not because of a sudden outbreak of sanity, but because they have CT scanners now.
- andai 8mo ago
  Yeah, I flew thru Eindhoven Airport in the Netherlands a few years ago, and I couldn't believe they let me through with water. The security used something I would describe as out of an Iron Man film, they were zooming around a translucent 3D view of my backpack. (It was on an LCD display instead of hovering midair, but I was still impressed. But the fact they let me keep the water was even more amazing, hahah.)
  - cyral 8mo ago
    I've seen this too in the US, the newer machines let them spin the scan around in 3D space and must make it much easier to tell if something needs inspection or not
    - CitrusFruits 8mo ago
      Yeah these are pretty common in the US, but they're just not ubiquitous. Many airports will still have a CT machine next to the old one and it just depends on what line you get out in.
  - throwup238 8mo ago
    > The security used something I would describe as out of an Iron Man film, they were zooming around a translucent 3D view of my backpack. (It was on an LCD display instead of hovering midair, but I was still impressed. I just flew with two laptops in my backpack which I didn't have to take out for the first time (haven't flown in a while), with a custom PCB with a couple of vivaldi antennas sandwiched in between the laptops. It was a real trip watching them view the three PCBs as a single stack, then automatically separate them out, and rotate them individually in 3D. The scanner threw some kind of warning and the operator asked me what the custom PCB was, so I had to explain to them it was a ground penetrating radar (that didn't go over well; I had to check the bag)
  - kevin_thibedeau 8mo ago
    You can do realtime 3D flythroughs on CT scans with open source viewers. If you've ever had one, get your DICOM data set and enjoy living in the future.
    - eternauta3k 8mo ago
      Can you recommend one? I've tried Aeskulap and Amide and I found it hard to get the 3D views to work.
      - kevin_thibedeau 8mo ago
        Inveselius works well. The UI lacks some polish but the rendering beats what most physicians have access to.
  - bulbar 8mo ago
    Tel Aviv has allowing this for quite some time (10 years?). I guess they update their security devices as soon as new technology becomes available. They don't advertise it, I found out by accident, trying to empty my water bottle by drinking when a security person told me to just put it together with the rest of my stuff. I had no idea that was a thing and was pretty confused.
  - summarity 8mo ago
    They’re multi wavelength CT. Basically whenever you see a 4:3 box with a “smiths” logo over the belt it’s going to be a pretty painless process (take nothing out except analog film)
- SV_BubbleTime 8mo ago
  I would say just as if not more important are probably some advanced nitrates detector.
- darth_avocado 8mo ago
  3-1-1 is rarely enforced. I always got confused why the 100ml limit existed, since I could just take multiple bottles of 100ml of whatever I wanted and it was okay. Then I realized that technically I only could take 3 bottles but I’ve been getting away with more for decades.
  - terribleperson 8mo ago
    It's not 3 bottles, it's 3.4 oz or 100 ml.
    - bsimpson 8mo ago
      isn't it whatever fits in a quart-sized ziploc? i presume that's where the other poster estimated "only 3 bottles."
      - terribleperson 8mo ago
        3-1-1 is an awful mnemonic, but it's basically: 3.4 oz containers in 1 1-quart ziplock bag.
        jonlucc 8mo ago
        I guess the comms people got their hands on it before they deployed the original mnemonic: 3.4-1-1
  - deleted 8mo ago
    [deleted]
  - vasco 8mo ago
    Then you hide them somewhere inside and go back out and in again
    - altern8 8mo ago
      OR, you just have one or more accomplices ;-)
- dataflow 8mo ago
  > Not because of a sudden outbreak of sanity, but because they have CT scanners now. What's is the evidence for believing so strongly that airports all over the world have been prohibiting large amounts of liquids due to widespread insanity?
outside1234 8mo ago
FINALLY (PS. Still not going to fly there)
stanislavb 8mo ago
Good. This should happen on all airports now. Otherwise it's useless. You won't be flying from Heathrow to Heathrow.
- noncoml 8mo ago
  You know they don't take your liquids at the destination airport, right?
  - deleted 8mo ago
    [deleted]
  - al_borland 8mo ago
    People generally have a return flight.
- United857 8mo ago
  It’s slowly happening at least in Europe: https://www.skycop.com/news/passenger-rights/airports-liquids-100ml-list/ https://www.skycop.com/news/passenger-rights/airports-liquid...
- chillacy 8mo ago
  Hmm, I once transited in Heathrow in a return flight from europe to the US and had to go through Heathrow security for whatever reason, where they subjected me to liquids rules way stricter than either my source or destination did. E.g. 1 day use contact lenses and prescription creams all having to fit in a tiny plastic bag. So I'm happy for this change.
  - alexfoo 8mo ago
    > Hmm, I once transited in Heathrow in a return flight from europe to the US and had to go through Heathrow security for whatever reason, The US mandates that you have to go through TSA approved security before getting on a flight to the US. Either the security at your European airport wasn't good enough, or the transit at Heathrow allowed you to access to things that invalidated the previous security screening and so it had to be done again. The bonus is that if you get to go through US Immigration at the departure airport then you can often land at domestic terminals in the US and the arrivals experience is far less tortuous. I flew to the US with a transit in Ireland a few times and it was so much nicer using the dead time before the Ireland -> US flight to clear immigration rather than spending anything from 15 minutes to 4 hours in a queue at the arrival airport in the US (all depending on which other flights arrived just before yours).
ekianjo 8mo ago
The security theater needs to go on. In the meantime batteries represent a much bigger risk with potential in flight fires but I guess nobody cares enough to do anything about it.
- kbutler 8mo ago
  When gate-checking carryon bags, staff told passengers to take batteries out of the carryons. It seems like something that is high risk during flight shouldn't be left to passenger compliance with spoken instructions.
- dexwiz 8mo ago
  If batteries were standardized and replaceable I bet they would force you to not bring your own, and only ones purchasable passed the gate could be used. Maybe that a silver lining to the repairability issues.
  - harry8 8mo ago
    On Scoot (Budget Singapore Air) they let you bring your external phone batteries on the plane but do NOT let you use them. You have to rent one of theirs. Skyphone installation by the airlines led to "flight mode" because the horror of not paying is far more important than safety. All of this fake, useless theatre undermines real security and makes us less safe while picking our pockets. Fluids to bring down a plane? FFS every human is equipped with a bladder. Why was this charlatanism ever tolerated at all?
    - chihuahua 8mo ago
      The intention/purpose of the limit on fluids was to prevent people from assembling liquid explosives inside the plane. The contents of your bladder would not help with that.
      - ekianjo 8mo ago
        if you are really serious about this, you can hide a pocket a fluid inside your body, and nobody would know...
nlawalker 8mo ago
Let me get this straight. If the article is correct, the new capabilities are related to better detection of large liquid containers, not determination of whether or not the liquid is dangerous. So - you couldn’t take large amounts of liquids previously because some liquids in large amounts might be able to be weaponized. If you were caught with too much liquid (in sum total, or in containers that are too large) they’d throw it out and send you on your way. But now that they have the ability to detect larger containers, they… do what? Declare that it’s safe and send you on your way with it still in your possession?
- jmward01 8mo ago
  I believe the article mentioned density as well. I suspect that is extremely key in determining what it is, or at least determining if it is something really odd that should get additional screening.
  - mjevans 8mo ago
    So they'll still make me toss out my dang sunscreen.
    - greazy 8mo ago
      No, they'd make you take it out if the scanner / person is unable to classify the object.
- dkersten 8mo ago
  Dublin has been relaxing their restrictions for a while now, and when I travelled two weeks ago, had also completely dropped the rules. You no longer need to remove liquids or electronics from bags, and the liquids per bottle limits are much higher (don’t remember exactly, maybe 2 litres) with no restriction on total number of bottles. I watched a YouTube video about it a few months back and apparently the new devices, at least those used in Dublin, are much more accurate in detecting the difference between materials that previously looked similar to the machines, they can also rotate the images in 3d to get a look from different angles. Both of these make it easier to tell whether a substance is dangerous, apparently.
lobochrome 8mo ago
This rule wasn't enforced anyway... I travel a lot - and never take out any liquids. Have nail clippers and scissors in my carry-on. Once I even had an opinel pocket knife in my laptop bag for a couple of months. Travelled through Tokyo, Taipei, SFO, DEN, PHX, LAX, BOS, JFK, FRA, AMS, MUC, LHR - nobody noticed. I seriously had forgotten it was there, so I don't do that now, but still... Also, no large water bottles or similar. Unless on domestic flights in Japan, where this is totally fine. IDK - security theater. But if it helps.
- djtango 8mo ago
  I lost a nice swiss army knife in Singapore because I was carry-on only and forgot I keep one in my toiletries bag. Was really upset because it was a Christmas gift from my parents. Annoying they don't let you collect it on the way back, I totally get it but would have paid a fine to get it back
  - FabHK 8mo ago
    They detected one of the very small Victorinox pocket knifes in my hand luggage at HKG airport and kept it; but I was given the option of picking it up at the carrier's airport office upon return.
  - al_borland 8mo ago
    It would be nice if there was an option to box it up and mail it back home or to a friend/family member for a fee. While a lot of people have throw away knives and wouldn’t care, many also have knives that are either expensive or have a lot of meaning. Maybe they would encourage more people to risk it and hope they don’t get caught, but a vast majority of these people aren’t criminals. When I was a kid I would always take a Swiss Army knife with me on vacation. That was my favorite thing to back, and I could look like a hero when an opportunity came up where it was useful. No longer.
    - jen20 8mo ago
      You can still do that if you check a bag instead of carrying it on, of course.
jmward01 8mo ago
Famously Steve Jobs had a story about shaving time off of boot-up and equating it to saving lives on the concept of people sitting their waiting for the computer to boot up just lost that much of their lives. [1] I actually do believe there is value in thinking this way and it is one of my biggest arguments against TSA. Everything has a cost, including 'security' and 'safety'. If you look at the very real human toll, and economic toll, that airport security has caused any potential gain is out the window in just one day of costs from screening, and that doesn't even get into the privacy destruction this has caused. I think I would get way to angry to comment on that in an intelligent way. But that is just one argument. My real anger at airport screening is that we have found it possible to fund and implement this level of screening, at massive monetary, human and privacy cost, but I can't go to my doctor and for a few pennies (sorry, those don't exist now, how about for a few nickles?) get a body scan that does all the 3d segmentation, recognition, etc etc etc. We could actually save lives if we put effort into this technology for people instead of for a sense of security. But we probably won't. Because fear gets money but solving real problems that actually impact people doesn't. [1] https://danemcfarlane.com/how-steve-jobs-turned-boot-time-into-a-lifesaving-mission/ https://danemcfarlane.com/how-steve-jobs-turned-boot-time-in...
- danpalmer 8mo ago
  > My real anger is that we have found it possible to fund and implement this level of screening, at massive monetary, human and privacy cost, but I can't go to my doctor and ... get a body scan that does all the 3d segmentation, recognition, etc Airport screening of people doesn't yield those results. It's able to notice a big inorganic mass, or a chunk of metal, but it wouldn't spot a tumour, it gives nowhere near the level of detail that an MRI or CAT scan will give. The airport scanners are also much cheaper, coming in at ~250k USD rather than ~2m USD. Even the xray machines used for bags, while expensive and capable, are designed to differentiate metals, liquids, and organics, not organics from other organics. Both airport security and healthcare funding have their issues, but I don't think this is one of them.
  - etchalon 8mo ago
    I think the point is we can afford massive machines for the TSA that are essentially paid for by the Federal Budget, and used by millions each day for free, but we can't do the same for MRI machines.
jonah 8mo ago
We transited through LHR yesterday. Still had to go through security - not sure why since we stayed on the air side. Anyway, signage required us to empty our refillable water bottles. Odd. Thankfully we eventually found a refill station. The scanners flagged a still sealed can of ginger ale left over from our incoming flight. It was "fine" but she still swabbed it. Shrug.
- stephen_g 8mo ago
  Pretty common to have to re-clear security at large airports if you've come from another country, I've had to do it every time when transiting through Dubai for instance.
- stevage 8mo ago
  It's super frustrating losing the contents of your water bottle and then having nowhere at all that you can refill it.
  - jacobp100 8mo ago
    I think all UK airports have easy to find water bottle refill stations
    - qweiopqweiop 8mo ago
      The ones at LHR suck though. Often broken/next to no water pressure. Easier to just ask a coffee shop.
- al_borland 8mo ago
  If you come in from a country that doesn’t fall under the TSA, you have to clear TSA before getting on a flight that does. The worst I had was in India, flying to the US. Not only was there the normal airport security (despite having come in on a connecting flight from within India), but when I got to the gate (with only minutes to spare), there was a whole TSA check at the gate itself. Bags x-rayed (again), metal detectors (again), guy with a wand (again), the whole deal. Just getting to the gate, I had to show my papers to at least 6 people; every time I turned down a new hallway. That was my far my worst airport experience.
dataflow 8mo ago
> TSA needs consistency in alarm resolution, secondary screening rates, and officer workflows—otherwise “keep liquids packed” becomes a promise that varies by airport, terminal, and even time of day. ...what? These already vary in the same airport literally by adjacent lanes...
- 3eb7988a1663 8mo ago
  I don't even know what I need to show at at the start of the line. My ID? My boarding pass? Both?
Fervicus 8mo ago
How many man hours and how much money have we wasted over security theater at airports? Has it been a worthwhile trade off?
- chihuahua 8mo ago
  No successful terrorist attacks on planes going to/from western countries after 9/11/2001, that's a pretty good record. Maybe we can't prove that the security theater was responsible for that, but still, the only planes that were bombed after 9/11/2001 were inside Russia or going from Egypt to Russia.
  - none2585 8mo ago
    This is an asinine take - it literally has nothing to do with the theater we deal with at the airports in America
    - abenga 8mo ago
      What's the actual reason then?
      - no_wizard 8mo ago
        Better cooperation between intelligence and law enforcement agencies
      - SCdF 8mo ago
        Locking the door of the cockpit, actual on the ground policing in terms of monitoring terror cells.
      - lesuorac 8mo ago
        There's 200 other people on the flight that think this plane is going to crash instead of thinking this plane is going to land safely and a ransom is going to occur. Prior to 9/11 hijackings were rare but still occurred with everybody living [1]. There is a notable truncation in the list after 9/11 of incidents per decade (across the world; so nothing special about TSA). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_hijackings#1990s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_hijackings#19...
roamingryan 8mo ago
I have never understood how this was effective against a determined adversary. An arbitrary limit like 100ml is pointless when there is no limit to the number of times you can pass through the checkpoint.
- atmosx 8mo ago
  Oh. So it was a security measure? I honestly thought it was a way to force you to spend money on things on the airport or abroad. Like shampoo, water, etc.
  - superfrank 8mo ago
    It was a reaction to a foiled terrorist attack in the UK where terrorists planned to blow up planes using liquid explosives disguised as bottles of soda. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_transatlantic_aircraft_plot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_transatlantic_aircraft_pl...
- chihuahua 8mo ago
  It's also hilarious that the limit is the very metric 100ml, and not some even number of freedom units like 3 or 4 fluid ounces, like Jesus, George Washington, and bald eagles would have wanted.
  - bleepblap 8mo ago
    TSA (at ohare) has a repeating thing that says 100ml or 3.2oz over the loudspeaker (never mind they are different amounts)
  - throwaway150 8mo ago
    UK uses the metric system. Why would anyone expect UK to follow the imperial system in $CURRENT_YEAR?
    - chihuahua 8mo ago
      I was referring to the fact that the TSA, the American government agency, also uses 100ml
deaux 8mo ago
> For airport operations teams, the real benefit isn’t just traveler satisfaction. It’s throughput stability: > - fewer stoppages caused by liquids mistakes > - fewer tray-handling steps per passenger > - less variability at peak banks (which is where hubs like LHR get punished) Didn't know ChatGPT has started to call itself "John Cushma".
- chrisfosterelli 8mo ago
  I noticed my eyes started automatically skimming right after that paragraph. It's funny my brain has learned to calibrate its reading effort in response to how much perceived effort went into writing it.
csomar 8mo ago
I always thought the rule was about damage (liquid spilling onto your bag and other passengers' bags) rather than safety? That's based on how the rule was shaped: 100ml containers with no limits as long as in a sealed plastic bag. I wonder if they'll walk this back? If you put a 2L water bottle in the overhead compartment and hit enough turbulence, it could open and drench the entire compartment and other people's luggage.
- rudhdb773b 8mo ago
  You're already allowed to refill large water bottles from a water fountain after passing through security, so the situation you described is already allowed to happen.
- jen20 8mo ago
  What exactly was stoppnig you buying a 2L bottle of vodka in a glass bottle a duty free after security and having this happen?
jandrewrogers 8mo ago
This just adds confusion as to the purpose of all this. The motivation behind the liquid limits is that there are extremely powerful explosives that are stable water-like liquids. Average people have never heard of them because they aren’t in popular lore. There has never been an industrial or military use, solids are simpler. Nonetheless, these explosives are easily accessible to a knowledgeable chemist like me. These explosives can be detected via infrared spectroscopy but that isn’t going to be happening to liquids in your bag. This reminds me of the chemical swipes done on your bags to detect explosives. Those swipes can only detect a narrow set of explosive chemistries and everyone knows it. Some explosives notoriously popular with terror organizations can’t be detected. Everyone, including the bad guys, knows all of this. It would be great if governments were more explicit about precisely what all of this theater is intended to prevent.
- wbl 8mo ago
  Won't asking people to take a swig solve a bunch of those issues?
  - jrockway 8mo ago
    People travel with liquids they don't intend to eat. Shampoo and all that. There is also nothing that precludes explosives from being non-toxic. Presumably your demise is near if you are carrying explosives through security. What do you care about heavy metal poisoning at that point?
    - chipsrafferty 8mo ago
      But also you can fill up a water bottle after security. Wouldn't it be fairly easy to make a pen or similar innocuous item out of sodium, and drop it in a bottle of water to make an explosion? My point is that security can never be strict enough to catch someone who's truly motivated and funded, without making it impossible to admit people at a reasonable pace, and the current rules don't really help with that except for cutting down on the riff raff terrorists. But maybe those are more common than a trained professional with high tech weapons, I don't know.
danilafe 8mo ago
This is funny because just a few months ago, I was forced at Heathrow to chug -- not allowed to pour out! -- my entire water bottle that I had filled prior to my flight. The security person watched me do it and added, "bathroom's over there".
- PcChip 8mo ago
  How did they force you to do that?
  - lmm 8mo ago
    Anything a border official says is implicitly backed with the threat of, at a minimum, detention without trial and without basic humane treatment like access to drinking water. Heathrow has well publicised cases (and is not unusual in this).
    - yakshaving_jgt 8mo ago
      > Heathrow has well publicised cases (and is not unusual in this) Share with us your best source for this.
      - lmm 8mo ago
        https://archive.md/xInVy https://archive.md/xInVy was the particular example I was mainly thinking of. Discussed here at the time with many more anecdotes in the comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11876453 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11876453
        yakshaving_jgt 8mo ago
        As suspected, your claim is grossly exaggerated. You have one blog post from a decade ago (which I remember reading at the time since I met the author at a conference) which is about being denied entry as the grounds for travel were misdeclared, and not about oppressive security theatre at the passenger screening area.
bleepblap 8mo ago
there is actually a science change that happened, and it's not (entirely) just politicians changing their mind. The big thing going from X-ray (2d) to CT (spin an X-ray machine around and take a ton of pictures to recreate a 3d image) did a lot to let security people see inside of a bag, but the hitch is that if you see a blob of gray is that water, shampoo or something else? The recent advance that is letting this happen is machines who will send multiple wavelengths of X-ray through the material: since different materials absorb light differently, your machine can distinguish between materials, which lets you be more sure that that 2litre is (mostly) water, and then they can discriminate
- bleepblap 8mo ago
  There's a whole ton of people taking about MRI -- MRIs are a completely universe than CT/X-rays
  - DaiPlusPlus 8mo ago
    I think if an MRI was ever used for airport security screening it would cause more damage and disruption than the terrorist bombs it purports to detect.
    - bleepblap 8mo ago
      It wasn't -- was just noting that people keep saying "MRI", when there's no 5T fields around most security checkpoints
      - lesuorac 8mo ago
        Isn't the world of MRIs moving towards lower teslas instead of higher?
        hansvm 8mo ago
        It's trying to, but "low" is still 0.5-1.5T.
user3939382 8mo ago
Forgive my zooming out but the overton window on this topic is in the wrong place. Airport security is dehumanizing inconvenient and unacceptable. I’d only use planes in an emergency. The living memory of what air travel is supposed to be is just gone with the sands of time. I don’t accept the shit economy version starting #1 with the cattle screening.
purpleidea 8mo ago
Heathrow is still a bullshit airport: 1) Bodyscanners: body scanners are a scam 2) They took away my 100ml contain that clearly had less than 1 cm of liquid in it because it wasn't clearly labelled as "100ml". Any idiot could know it was like 10ml full. 3) They used to do actual xray basically on people. 4) You have to re-security to transfer on connections! You already could have blown up the incoming plane, why does this even matter? I don't go there anymore. Waste of time and all security theatre without common sense.
- Nextgrid 8mo ago
  A trick I use to bypass the liquid restriction is to intentionally pack a sacrificial bottle in addition to whatever valuable bottle I care about. In most cases when the luggage comes for manual inspection they toss the first (sacrificial one) they see and leave the actual valuable bottle alone.
- Ylpertnodi 8mo ago
  > Heathrow is still a bullshit airport: Heathrow has the best Guinness+ in the world - those pumps just don't stop. * if you don't like Guinness, DON'T try it if you've already had a different beer/ ale (whatever). Try it before anything else or it's worse than the very devil spitting on your buds (!).
al_borland 8mo ago
On my last trip I bought some different deodorant, because my usual brand was .2oz over the limit. Not sure why the brand wouldn’t just go with the TSA limit to make life easy for everyone. The new stuff ended up staining all my shirts. I largely blame the TSA for having to buy all new shirts. Next time I’m going to less of a stickler for the rules and hope for the best, as following the rules yields poor outcomes. Hopefully by that time the new rules will filter out to more airports.
roschdal 8mo ago
I am sure Al-Qaeda will be thrilled about this.
- yakshaving_jgt 8mo ago
  Well you wouldn't want a thirsty terrorist, would you?
burnt-resistor 8mo ago
Presumably, these CT scanners involve fairly energetic photons, and if they're above 100 keV, then that's bit-flipping error territory.
wtcactus 8mo ago
25 years to do this. I had the luck of traveling by plane quite a bit before 2001 and I can tell you it was much more pleasurable. Now, the issues now-a-days are not only due to the security circus, it's true. But it does play a major role.
maximgeorge 8mo ago
[dead]
wodenokoto 8mo ago
My GF is from East Asia and has travelled almost 100 countries, anything from rich first world to poor 3rd world countries. She was absolutely shocked to find that liquid container limits were enforced in northern Europe. She would just put her makeup bag with cleansers and gels and everything in her carry-on and travel the world.
nottorp 8mo ago
Okay but for personal toiletry stuff you need the rule scrapped at both ends of your trip.
- dxdm 8mo ago
  Don't be sad. One step at a time. One more trip-end to connect to other trip-ends. Or do you want to wait with roll-out until the whole world is ready to do it at the same time? Always look on the bright side of life. :)
  - nottorp 8mo ago
    My deodorant isn't available in those small travel containers :( And it's the only thing i really care about, I can do with any random toothpaste and shaving foam that i buy on arrival. But maybe it will happen in my lifetime.
    - dxdm 8mo ago
      Ok, that's a bummer. Here's a silly idea that is probably not new to you, but just in case: have you looked into refillable deodorant dispensers?
      - nottorp 8mo ago
        Eh, I use another product that's bearable to me when I go on plane trips. But I want mine!
        dxdm 8mo ago
        Then my original advice applies. Don't worry, be happy! Can't recommend it enough.
hdgvhicv 8mo ago
Flew through Heathrow a few months ago. Signs flashing on the screens specifically saying laptops must be removed, security guys yelling “don’t remove laptops”
- smcl 8mo ago
  This was my experience too - they're visibly angry at you for following the rules
  - ExoticPearTree 8mo ago
    Flying through JFK once, security lines had different rules: Line one, laptop in, shoes out. Line two, laptop out, shoes stayed. Line 3, nothing out. It was hilarious, because TSA agents would talk over each other, confusing the hell out of everyone.
hacker_88 8mo ago
Key and peele
- evanjsx 8mo ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHfiMoJUDVQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHfiMoJUDVQ
alexfoo 8mo ago
And don't rely on the destination airport having the same rules when you fly back. This used to get people doing EU -> London flights. The EU rules had already been relaxed, but you got bitten by the extra restrictions when you went to fly back. Like most things, flying is a complete shitshow, but do it often enough and you get used to it and all of the foibles. Regularly flying hand luggage only is a grind as you're at the mercy of the lowest common denominator in terms of rules on what you can carry. When I had to visit a string of customers with one or two flights a day I had to submit expense claims with various toiletries purchased several times over, it was questioned by the finance department and they asked about whether I should check in a bag next time, but they stopped pushing when I said that adding a checked bag to my tickets would have been about 10 times more expensive than just buying things as and when I needed them. Hugely wasteful but then so is flying, and most of my trips could have been replaced with a video call if it wasn't for touchy-feely corporate politics. Water: I use a generic cycling bidon for travel. I empty it before security and they're happy with that. Any sane airport will have places to refill it for free, if they don't I can just buy a bottle of water and refill it. No airport I've traveled through has wanted to confiscate an empty cycling bidon and if they did it's cheap to replace.
mogoman 8mo ago
It seems that this is only in place at the security entering the terminal. I landed in Heathrow a few days ago and had to empty out my water bottle (which I got given on the flight to the UK) for the transfer security check.
RamblingCTO 8mo ago
Frankfurt has been doing that for ages (2 years now?). They just got better scanners. But they don't cover all terminals or checkpoints, so you gotta know your way around.
- wiredfool 8mo ago
  I don't recall it in Frankfurt last summer, but it was definitely going earlier this month. Though, they've got a weird security setup for some of the gates, so I'm sure it varied from gate to gate. Dublin and Edinburgh have had it for a while too, Dublin since last summer. Really speeds up security.
  - roryirvine 8mo ago
    Yeah, even small airports like Belfast City have had it for the past couple of years. Other London area airports (Luton, City, and Gatwick - not sure about Stansted) have had it for about as long, too. Heathrow's definitely a straggler - I'm assuming it was a more difficult project for them due to their sheer size.
ivanjermakov 8mo ago
Wonder what effect it's gonna have on duty free economy. I'm sure selling beverages is the big chunk of airport's revenue.
- MikeNotThePope 8mo ago
  Doesn’t duty free shopping typically happen after one goes through security?
  - sokoloff 8mo ago
    If you confiscate my Diet Coke at security, you have created demand for Diet Coke on the other side of security.
piokoch 8mo ago
From the beginning it was a scam to force people to buy 10 times overpriced water. Kudos to Brits that they do away with this absurdity.
Halan 8mo ago
How is this news? A lot of airports in Europe had had this for years and even in England there were terminals within the major hubs where this was already the norm
- n4r9 8mo ago
  Heathrow is by far the largest airport in the UK, with several times more flights per day than any other, and flights to a broader range of destinations. So it affects a lot more prospective fliers. I looked up European airports and found some mention that Rome and Milan also have this new equipment, but they're both still significantly smaller than Heathrow.
  - Halan 8mo ago
    Gatwick already had it too, at least a part of it. The fact Heathrow got 30/40% more traffic than other airports in the same continent already having it doesn’t make the news worth all this noise.
    - n4r9 8mo ago
      Yes but Heathrow has around twice as many departures per day (edit after your edit:) than Gatwick. This is on BBC news. Heathrow is twice as busy as any other airport in the UK. It's the easiest major airport to reach from London (other than LCY which is not that "major"). I literally know people who are leaving from Heathrow this week and are affected by this. C'mon, it's newsworthy.
      - Halan 8mo ago
        Yeah and 50% more than Rome, but overall less than all airports already doing it in Europe. This news made front page out of two things: 1) English people do not know anything about continental Europe 2) Americans do not know anything about Europe
        n4r9 8mo ago
gadders 8mo ago
I remember the days in the 90's when me and my wife could both carry back 5l containers of the local red wine in our carry on. I hope that comes back...
- dxdm 8mo ago
  The free wine on the planes has gotten better since then. ;p
thomassmith65 8mo ago
The comments here insinuating that airplane terrorism is a non-issue would make for a good chapter in Carl Sagan's Demon-Haunted World. Yes, after 9/11 airports did introduce 'security theater' methods. That is a fair. No, worrying about airplane terrorism is not pearl-clutching. The most likely explanation for its decline is that the changes the establishment made were effective. The establishment successfully dealt with the difficult problem of airplane terrorism, thereby leaving the public free to take it for granted and complain about the establishment.
- James_K 8mo ago
  Are we to worry about train terrorism also? Shop terrorism? A person might bring a bomb to any crowded space, it simply is not practical to check all of them.
  - thomassmith65 8mo ago
    It's difficult to take down a skyscraper with a train. Yes, 'shop terrorism' can be a problem (see: the UK during the Troubles). I do agree with the implication that society must tolerate a certain amount of terrorism to avoid turning into a police state. That does not mean that airplane terrorism, without strict security, is so rare that we can ignore it.
    - kebman 8mo ago
      This is probably a massive downvote waiting to happen, but I have more faith in 9/11 being a controlled demo. Not out of evil. Just to prevent New York turning into a giant domino show.
      - thomassmith65 8mo ago
        My theory is that terrorists hijacked two airliners full with jet fuel, and crashed them into each WTC tower, causing the structure to weaken from the heat and fail.
alansaber 8mo ago
Still not allowed to bring in food, but now allowed to bring in unlimited soup? Ridiculous
- ExoticPearTree 8mo ago
  Where were you prohibited from bringing in food?
  - retired 8mo ago
    Don't give RyanAir any ideas please.
  - sdpy 8mo ago
    > Many agriculture products are prohibited entry into the United States from certain countries because they may carry plant pests and foreign animal diseases. > Prohibited or restricted items may include meats, fresh fruits and vegetables, plants, seeds, soil and products made from animal or plant materials. https://www.cbp.gov/travel/international-visitors/agricultural-items https://www.cbp.gov/travel/international-visitors/agricultur...
    - United857 8mo ago
      Airport departure security (bringing onboard a plane) is different than arrival customs (bringing into a country).
bkmeneguello 8mo ago
There is something I never understood: what if multiple people carry the limit of "explosive/flammable" liquid allowed and combine it inside the plane?
- ec109685 8mo ago
  Defense in depth.
pelagicAustral 8mo ago
If you think you had it bad all these years, you should come and visit the Falkland Islands. I will be brief, but I will explain what going through the Mount Pleasant Airport (MPN) feel like for the average visitor. For added context: Only one flight by a commercial airline a week on Saturday, comes in around 1300, departs around 1500. You miss it, you wait another week. - The terminal is extremely small, the plane that comes around can probably fit around 180 pax, you could not fit that many people on the check-in lounge, which means a lot of times people have to queue outside, even in the winter. - Check in is sluggish, with the Airline representatives in the Falklands calling for check in 4 hours in advance when a flight is full. - After getting your ticket, security will check your bags and you will be asked to wait an undetermined amount of time, to see if a "random" check need to take place, again, the terminal is tiny, people often crowds waiting forever for their name the be shouted by some security person. - If you manage to get passed this part, you are still not safe, security can still call your name when passing through or after immigration. Even if you are already in the wait lounge. Someone might still show up and shout your name. - Immigration will scan your passport and charge you £40 for leaving the country. - Now you are actually commit to the security checkpoint (these are the same guys that scan the bags on check-in). At any given time there is at least 10 in a 5m2 area. You are forced to take your shoes, no liquids are allowed, no toothpaste, take all electronics out of your bag, take jacket off. - You are randomly tested for drug and explosive traces (GOING OFF THE FALKLAND ISLANDS) - You may be patted - All your belongings might be checked at this point as well. All in all, you could be looking at a 2-hour ordeal from start to finish. Do yourself a favor. Go to Maldives instead.
- secondcoming 8mo ago
  That's crazy.
- NL807 8mo ago
  Dudes must be really bored there
- IshKebab 8mo ago
  Apart from a lack of space a lot of that is very normal, and it's hardly surprising things are a bit janky if they only have one flight a week.
mvijayaadhithya 8mo ago
Good
kebman 8mo ago
Going to Edinburgh Airport, I was reminded that the tiny water bottle I forgot in my bag could be a bomb. I just went "Oh jeez I'm sorry... Here, have some water! You look like you need it!" Then I opened the bottle and drank it. He grabbed it out of my hands and said it had to go to some lab. So I went "Ok then, the chemical compounds in there are ... H2O and perhaps some carbon...? Idk. I'm not a chemist, but I'm fairly sure the worst thing it'll do is make me burp."
- Wiles_7 8mo ago
  Thankfully, Edinburgh airport has relaxed it liquid rules. You are now allowed up to 2 litres, across one or more containers and they stay in your bag while going through security.
mgaunard 8mo ago
In my experience the real issue with airports is the border control, not the security check.
Pete-Codes 8mo ago
Nice to see them catch up with Edinburgh.
shevy-java 8mo ago
That liquid limit never made any real sense to me; it always seemed arbitrary. Now - I don't think I was ever affected by it in any way, shape or form, though I also rarely use(d) the plane. But to me it seemed more as if it was an attempt to meta-engineer the opinion of people, e. g. to make them fearful of danger xyz. When I look at the current US administration and how the ICE deathsquads operate (two US citizens shot dead already), with that administration instantly defending them without even any trial, then this also seems more a propaganda operation - that one being more reminiscent of the 1930s supposedly, but we had this wave of propaganda before (e. g. both Bush presidents; Noriega capture is somewhat similar to Maduro, though the latter situation seems more as if the other officials in Venezuela purposefully gave him up - watch how the sanctions will be removed in a short while).
- mcculley 8mo ago
  > it seemed more as if it was an attempt to meta-engineer the opinion of people, e. g. to make them fearful of danger xyz > how the ICE deathsquads operate Hanlon's Razor applies. These are not complicated conspiracies. Just myopic humans making bad decisions.
bell-cot 8mo ago
If anyone's looking for a quick "airport security is mostly theater" argument, without getting into the weeds of weapon & explosive & detection technologies - notice that pagers and similar electronics are not on the TSA's list of forbidden items - https://www.tsa.gov/travel/security-screening/whatcanibring/all-list https://www.tsa.gov/travel/security-screening/whatcanibring/... - despite their famous use as at-scale, remotely controlled explosives devices back in 2024 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Lebanon_electronic_device_attacks#Operational_details https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Lebanon_electronic_device...
jiffygist 8mo ago
Stupid question as I never flied: does the limit include drinking water?
gorfian_robot 8mo ago
Los Alamos is developing these cool resonance based detectors https://www.lanl.gov/media/publications/1663/1224-fighting-fentanyl-overdose https://www.lanl.gov/media/publications/1663/1224-fighting-f...
t1234s 8mo ago
Which companies were the big winners with all the post-9/11 security theater?
- CGMthrowaway 8mo ago
  Booz, L3, Rapiscan, Smiths, Leidos, Verint... their logos are mostly everywhere at the airport
lacoolj 8mo ago
I have yet to encounter a reason to take more than 3oz of liquid with me on a flight somewhere. Once the restriction was added, it seemed like "oh no how dare you" but in reality, I'm never carrying enough toothpaste to make this a problem. Are other people truly struggling with this limitation? Feels more like a perceived issue than a practical one.
- teachrdan 8mo ago
  In the US at least, the limit applies to containers that hold more than 3oz. So I'm prohibited from bringing an 8oz toothpaste tube with an ounce or less left in it. This is an inconvenience if I want to fly for a multi-day trip without checking any baggage.
fishywang 8mo ago
I was flying out of LHR yesterday (Monday). I read the news before so asked the agent at security check "I don't need to empty my water bottle now right?" and she was like "nah that's only for up to 2 litres in a clear/plastic bottle, not a metal flask bottle" or something along those lines. I was using a Stanley metal water bottle. So I still had to empty my bottle.
telliott1984 8mo ago
Sad to see no mention of Manchester airport in this. Seems like they flag every third bag for manual screening.

632 points by robotsliketea 8mo ago

deleted 8mo ago

[deleted]

jbellis 8mo ago

Not because of a sudden outbreak of sanity, but because they have CT scanners now.

andai 8mo ago
Yeah, I flew thru Eindhoven Airport in the Netherlands a few years ago, and I couldn't believe they let me through with water. The security used something I would describe as out of an Iron Man film, they were zooming around a translucent 3D view of my backpack. (It was on an LCD display instead of hovering midair, but I was still impressed. But the fact they let me keep the water was even more amazing, hahah.)
- cyral 8mo ago
  I've seen this too in the US, the newer machines let them spin the scan around in 3D space and must make it much easier to tell if something needs inspection or not
  - CitrusFruits 8mo ago
    Yeah these are pretty common in the US, but they're just not ubiquitous. Many airports will still have a CT machine next to the old one and it just depends on what line you get out in.
- throwup238 8mo ago
  > The security used something I would describe as out of an Iron Man film, they were zooming around a translucent 3D view of my backpack. (It was on an LCD display instead of hovering midair, but I was still impressed. I just flew with two laptops in my backpack which I didn't have to take out for the first time (haven't flown in a while), with a custom PCB with a couple of vivaldi antennas sandwiched in between the laptops. It was a real trip watching them view the three PCBs as a single stack, then automatically separate them out, and rotate them individually in 3D. The scanner threw some kind of warning and the operator asked me what the custom PCB was, so I had to explain to them it was a ground penetrating radar (that didn't go over well; I had to check the bag)
- kevin_thibedeau 8mo ago
  You can do realtime 3D flythroughs on CT scans with open source viewers. If you've ever had one, get your DICOM data set and enjoy living in the future.
  - eternauta3k 8mo ago
    Can you recommend one? I've tried Aeskulap and Amide and I found it hard to get the 3D views to work.
    - kevin_thibedeau 8mo ago
      Inveselius works well. The UI lacks some polish but the rendering beats what most physicians have access to.
- bulbar 8mo ago
  Tel Aviv has allowing this for quite some time (10 years?). I guess they update their security devices as soon as new technology becomes available. They don't advertise it, I found out by accident, trying to empty my water bottle by drinking when a security person told me to just put it together with the rest of my stuff. I had no idea that was a thing and was pretty confused.
- summarity 8mo ago
  They’re multi wavelength CT. Basically whenever you see a 4:3 box with a “smiths” logo over the belt it’s going to be a pretty painless process (take nothing out except analog film)
SV_BubbleTime 8mo ago
I would say just as if not more important are probably some advanced nitrates detector.
darth_avocado 8mo ago
3-1-1 is rarely enforced. I always got confused why the 100ml limit existed, since I could just take multiple bottles of 100ml of whatever I wanted and it was okay. Then I realized that technically I only could take 3 bottles but I’ve been getting away with more for decades.
- terribleperson 8mo ago
  It's not 3 bottles, it's 3.4 oz or 100 ml.
  - bsimpson 8mo ago
    isn't it whatever fits in a quart-sized ziploc? i presume that's where the other poster estimated "only 3 bottles."
    - terribleperson 8mo ago
      3-1-1 is an awful mnemonic, but it's basically: 3.4 oz containers in 1 1-quart ziplock bag.
      - jonlucc 8mo ago
        I guess the comms people got their hands on it before they deployed the original mnemonic: 3.4-1-1
- deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
- vasco 8mo ago
  Then you hide them somewhere inside and go back out and in again
  - altern8 8mo ago
    OR, you just have one or more accomplices ;-)
dataflow 8mo ago
> Not because of a sudden outbreak of sanity, but because they have CT scanners now. What's is the evidence for believing so strongly that airports all over the world have been prohibiting large amounts of liquids due to widespread insanity?

outside1234 8mo ago

FINALLY (PS. Still not going to fly there)

stanislavb 8mo ago

Good. This should happen on all airports now. Otherwise it's useless. You won't be flying from Heathrow to Heathrow.

noncoml 8mo ago
You know they don't take your liquids at the destination airport, right?
- deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
- al_borland 8mo ago
  People generally have a return flight.
United857 8mo ago
It’s slowly happening at least in Europe: https://www.skycop.com/news/passenger-rights/airports-liquids-100ml-list/ https://www.skycop.com/news/passenger-rights/airports-liquid...
chillacy 8mo ago
Hmm, I once transited in Heathrow in a return flight from europe to the US and had to go through Heathrow security for whatever reason, where they subjected me to liquids rules way stricter than either my source or destination did. E.g. 1 day use contact lenses and prescription creams all having to fit in a tiny plastic bag. So I'm happy for this change.
- alexfoo 8mo ago
  > Hmm, I once transited in Heathrow in a return flight from europe to the US and had to go through Heathrow security for whatever reason, The US mandates that you have to go through TSA approved security before getting on a flight to the US. Either the security at your European airport wasn't good enough, or the transit at Heathrow allowed you to access to things that invalidated the previous security screening and so it had to be done again. The bonus is that if you get to go through US Immigration at the departure airport then you can often land at domestic terminals in the US and the arrivals experience is far less tortuous. I flew to the US with a transit in Ireland a few times and it was so much nicer using the dead time before the Ireland -> US flight to clear immigration rather than spending anything from 15 minutes to 4 hours in a queue at the arrival airport in the US (all depending on which other flights arrived just before yours).

ekianjo 8mo ago

The security theater needs to go on. In the meantime batteries represent a much bigger risk with potential in flight fires but I guess nobody cares enough to do anything about it.

kbutler 8mo ago
When gate-checking carryon bags, staff told passengers to take batteries out of the carryons. It seems like something that is high risk during flight shouldn't be left to passenger compliance with spoken instructions.
dexwiz 8mo ago
If batteries were standardized and replaceable I bet they would force you to not bring your own, and only ones purchasable passed the gate could be used. Maybe that a silver lining to the repairability issues.
- harry8 8mo ago
  On Scoot (Budget Singapore Air) they let you bring your external phone batteries on the plane but do NOT let you use them. You have to rent one of theirs. Skyphone installation by the airlines led to "flight mode" because the horror of not paying is far more important than safety. All of this fake, useless theatre undermines real security and makes us less safe while picking our pockets. Fluids to bring down a plane? FFS every human is equipped with a bladder. Why was this charlatanism ever tolerated at all?
  - chihuahua 8mo ago
    The intention/purpose of the limit on fluids was to prevent people from assembling liquid explosives inside the plane. The contents of your bladder would not help with that.
    - ekianjo 8mo ago
      if you are really serious about this, you can hide a pocket a fluid inside your body, and nobody would know...

nlawalker 8mo ago

Let me get this straight. If the article is correct, the new capabilities are related to better detection of large liquid containers, not determination of whether or not the liquid is dangerous. So - you couldn’t take large amounts of liquids previously because some liquids in large amounts might be able to be weaponized. If you were caught with too much liquid (in sum total, or in containers that are too large) they’d throw it out and send you on your way. But now that they have the ability to detect larger containers, they… do what? Declare that it’s safe and send you on your way with it still in your possession?

jmward01 8mo ago
I believe the article mentioned density as well. I suspect that is extremely key in determining what it is, or at least determining if it is something really odd that should get additional screening.
- mjevans 8mo ago
  So they'll still make me toss out my dang sunscreen.
  - greazy 8mo ago
    No, they'd make you take it out if the scanner / person is unable to classify the object.
dkersten 8mo ago
Dublin has been relaxing their restrictions for a while now, and when I travelled two weeks ago, had also completely dropped the rules. You no longer need to remove liquids or electronics from bags, and the liquids per bottle limits are much higher (don’t remember exactly, maybe 2 litres) with no restriction on total number of bottles. I watched a YouTube video about it a few months back and apparently the new devices, at least those used in Dublin, are much more accurate in detecting the difference between materials that previously looked similar to the machines, they can also rotate the images in 3d to get a look from different angles. Both of these make it easier to tell whether a substance is dangerous, apparently.

lobochrome 8mo ago

This rule wasn't enforced anyway... I travel a lot - and never take out any liquids. Have nail clippers and scissors in my carry-on. Once I even had an opinel pocket knife in my laptop bag for a couple of months. Travelled through Tokyo, Taipei, SFO, DEN, PHX, LAX, BOS, JFK, FRA, AMS, MUC, LHR - nobody noticed. I seriously had forgotten it was there, so I don't do that now, but still... Also, no large water bottles or similar. Unless on domestic flights in Japan, where this is totally fine. IDK - security theater. But if it helps.

djtango 8mo ago
I lost a nice swiss army knife in Singapore because I was carry-on only and forgot I keep one in my toiletries bag. Was really upset because it was a Christmas gift from my parents. Annoying they don't let you collect it on the way back, I totally get it but would have paid a fine to get it back
- FabHK 8mo ago
  They detected one of the very small Victorinox pocket knifes in my hand luggage at HKG airport and kept it; but I was given the option of picking it up at the carrier's airport office upon return.
- al_borland 8mo ago
  It would be nice if there was an option to box it up and mail it back home or to a friend/family member for a fee. While a lot of people have throw away knives and wouldn’t care, many also have knives that are either expensive or have a lot of meaning. Maybe they would encourage more people to risk it and hope they don’t get caught, but a vast majority of these people aren’t criminals. When I was a kid I would always take a Swiss Army knife with me on vacation. That was my favorite thing to back, and I could look like a hero when an opportunity came up where it was useful. No longer.
  - jen20 8mo ago
    You can still do that if you check a bag instead of carrying it on, of course.

jmward01 8mo ago

Famously Steve Jobs had a story about shaving time off of boot-up and equating it to saving lives on the concept of people sitting their waiting for the computer to boot up just lost that much of their lives. [1] I actually do believe there is value in thinking this way and it is one of my biggest arguments against TSA. Everything has a cost, including 'security' and 'safety'. If you look at the very real human toll, and economic toll, that airport security has caused any potential gain is out the window in just one day of costs from screening, and that doesn't even get into the privacy destruction this has caused. I think I would get way to angry to comment on that in an intelligent way. But that is just one argument. My real anger at airport screening is that we have found it possible to fund and implement this level of screening, at massive monetary, human and privacy cost, but I can't go to my doctor and for a few pennies (sorry, those don't exist now, how about for a few nickles?) get a body scan that does all the 3d segmentation, recognition, etc etc etc. We could actually save lives if we put effort into this technology for people instead of for a sense of security. But we probably won't. Because fear gets money but solving real problems that actually impact people doesn't. [1] https://danemcfarlane.com/how-steve-jobs-turned-boot-time-into-a-lifesaving-mission/ https://danemcfarlane.com/how-steve-jobs-turned-boot-time-in...

danpalmer 8mo ago
> My real anger is that we have found it possible to fund and implement this level of screening, at massive monetary, human and privacy cost, but I can't go to my doctor and ... get a body scan that does all the 3d segmentation, recognition, etc Airport screening of people doesn't yield those results. It's able to notice a big inorganic mass, or a chunk of metal, but it wouldn't spot a tumour, it gives nowhere near the level of detail that an MRI or CAT scan will give. The airport scanners are also much cheaper, coming in at ~250k USD rather than ~2m USD. Even the xray machines used for bags, while expensive and capable, are designed to differentiate metals, liquids, and organics, not organics from other organics. Both airport security and healthcare funding have their issues, but I don't think this is one of them.
- etchalon 8mo ago
  I think the point is we can afford massive machines for the TSA that are essentially paid for by the Federal Budget, and used by millions each day for free, but we can't do the same for MRI machines.

jonah 8mo ago

We transited through LHR yesterday. Still had to go through security - not sure why since we stayed on the air side. Anyway, signage required us to empty our refillable water bottles. Odd. Thankfully we eventually found a refill station. The scanners flagged a still sealed can of ginger ale left over from our incoming flight. It was "fine" but she still swabbed it. Shrug.

stephen_g 8mo ago
Pretty common to have to re-clear security at large airports if you've come from another country, I've had to do it every time when transiting through Dubai for instance.
stevage 8mo ago
It's super frustrating losing the contents of your water bottle and then having nowhere at all that you can refill it.
- jacobp100 8mo ago
  I think all UK airports have easy to find water bottle refill stations
  - qweiopqweiop 8mo ago
    The ones at LHR suck though. Often broken/next to no water pressure. Easier to just ask a coffee shop.
al_borland 8mo ago
If you come in from a country that doesn’t fall under the TSA, you have to clear TSA before getting on a flight that does. The worst I had was in India, flying to the US. Not only was there the normal airport security (despite having come in on a connecting flight from within India), but when I got to the gate (with only minutes to spare), there was a whole TSA check at the gate itself. Bags x-rayed (again), metal detectors (again), guy with a wand (again), the whole deal. Just getting to the gate, I had to show my papers to at least 6 people; every time I turned down a new hallway. That was my far my worst airport experience.

dataflow 8mo ago

> TSA needs consistency in alarm resolution, secondary screening rates, and officer workflows—otherwise “keep liquids packed” becomes a promise that varies by airport, terminal, and even time of day. ...what? These already vary in the same airport literally by adjacent lanes...

3eb7988a1663 8mo ago
I don't even know what I need to show at at the start of the line. My ID? My boarding pass? Both?

Fervicus 8mo ago

How many man hours and how much money have we wasted over security theater at airports? Has it been a worthwhile trade off?

chihuahua 8mo ago
No successful terrorist attacks on planes going to/from western countries after 9/11/2001, that's a pretty good record. Maybe we can't prove that the security theater was responsible for that, but still, the only planes that were bombed after 9/11/2001 were inside Russia or going from Egypt to Russia.
- none2585 8mo ago
  This is an asinine take - it literally has nothing to do with the theater we deal with at the airports in America
  - abenga 8mo ago
    What's the actual reason then?
    - no_wizard 8mo ago
      Better cooperation between intelligence and law enforcement agencies
    - SCdF 8mo ago
      Locking the door of the cockpit, actual on the ground policing in terms of monitoring terror cells.
    - lesuorac 8mo ago
      There's 200 other people on the flight that think this plane is going to crash instead of thinking this plane is going to land safely and a ransom is going to occur. Prior to 9/11 hijackings were rare but still occurred with everybody living [1]. There is a notable truncation in the list after 9/11 of incidents per decade (across the world; so nothing special about TSA). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_hijackings#1990s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_hijackings#19...

roamingryan 8mo ago

I have never understood how this was effective against a determined adversary. An arbitrary limit like 100ml is pointless when there is no limit to the number of times you can pass through the checkpoint.

atmosx 8mo ago
Oh. So it was a security measure? I honestly thought it was a way to force you to spend money on things on the airport or abroad. Like shampoo, water, etc.
- superfrank 8mo ago
  It was a reaction to a foiled terrorist attack in the UK where terrorists planned to blow up planes using liquid explosives disguised as bottles of soda. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_transatlantic_aircraft_plot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_transatlantic_aircraft_pl...
chihuahua 8mo ago
It's also hilarious that the limit is the very metric 100ml, and not some even number of freedom units like 3 or 4 fluid ounces, like Jesus, George Washington, and bald eagles would have wanted.
- bleepblap 8mo ago
  TSA (at ohare) has a repeating thing that says 100ml or 3.2oz over the loudspeaker (never mind they are different amounts)
- throwaway150 8mo ago
  UK uses the metric system. Why would anyone expect UK to follow the imperial system in $CURRENT_YEAR?
  - chihuahua 8mo ago
    I was referring to the fact that the TSA, the American government agency, also uses 100ml

deaux 8mo ago

> For airport operations teams, the real benefit isn’t just traveler satisfaction. It’s throughput stability: > - fewer stoppages caused by liquids mistakes > - fewer tray-handling steps per passenger > - less variability at peak banks (which is where hubs like LHR get punished) Didn't know ChatGPT has started to call itself "John Cushma".

chrisfosterelli 8mo ago
I noticed my eyes started automatically skimming right after that paragraph. It's funny my brain has learned to calibrate its reading effort in response to how much perceived effort went into writing it.

csomar 8mo ago

I always thought the rule was about damage (liquid spilling onto your bag and other passengers' bags) rather than safety? That's based on how the rule was shaped: 100ml containers with no limits as long as in a sealed plastic bag. I wonder if they'll walk this back? If you put a 2L water bottle in the overhead compartment and hit enough turbulence, it could open and drench the entire compartment and other people's luggage.

rudhdb773b 8mo ago
You're already allowed to refill large water bottles from a water fountain after passing through security, so the situation you described is already allowed to happen.
jen20 8mo ago
What exactly was stoppnig you buying a 2L bottle of vodka in a glass bottle a duty free after security and having this happen?

jandrewrogers 8mo ago

This just adds confusion as to the purpose of all this. The motivation behind the liquid limits is that there are extremely powerful explosives that are stable water-like liquids. Average people have never heard of them because they aren’t in popular lore. There has never been an industrial or military use, solids are simpler. Nonetheless, these explosives are easily accessible to a knowledgeable chemist like me. These explosives can be detected via infrared spectroscopy but that isn’t going to be happening to liquids in your bag. This reminds me of the chemical swipes done on your bags to detect explosives. Those swipes can only detect a narrow set of explosive chemistries and everyone knows it. Some explosives notoriously popular with terror organizations can’t be detected. Everyone, including the bad guys, knows all of this. It would be great if governments were more explicit about precisely what all of this theater is intended to prevent.

wbl 8mo ago
Won't asking people to take a swig solve a bunch of those issues?
- jrockway 8mo ago
  People travel with liquids they don't intend to eat. Shampoo and all that. There is also nothing that precludes explosives from being non-toxic. Presumably your demise is near if you are carrying explosives through security. What do you care about heavy metal poisoning at that point?
  - chipsrafferty 8mo ago
    But also you can fill up a water bottle after security. Wouldn't it be fairly easy to make a pen or similar innocuous item out of sodium, and drop it in a bottle of water to make an explosion? My point is that security can never be strict enough to catch someone who's truly motivated and funded, without making it impossible to admit people at a reasonable pace, and the current rules don't really help with that except for cutting down on the riff raff terrorists. But maybe those are more common than a trained professional with high tech weapons, I don't know.

danilafe 8mo ago

This is funny because just a few months ago, I was forced at Heathrow to chug -- not allowed to pour out! -- my entire water bottle that I had filled prior to my flight. The security person watched me do it and added, "bathroom's over there".

PcChip 8mo ago
How did they force you to do that?
- lmm 8mo ago
  Anything a border official says is implicitly backed with the threat of, at a minimum, detention without trial and without basic humane treatment like access to drinking water. Heathrow has well publicised cases (and is not unusual in this).
  - yakshaving_jgt 8mo ago
    > Heathrow has well publicised cases (and is not unusual in this) Share with us your best source for this.
    - lmm 8mo ago
      https://archive.md/xInVy https://archive.md/xInVy was the particular example I was mainly thinking of. Discussed here at the time with many more anecdotes in the comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11876453 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11876453
      - yakshaving_jgt 8mo ago
        As suspected, your claim is grossly exaggerated. You have one blog post from a decade ago (which I remember reading at the time since I met the author at a conference) which is about being denied entry as the grounds for travel were misdeclared, and not about oppressive security theatre at the passenger screening area.

bleepblap 8mo ago

there is actually a science change that happened, and it's not (entirely) just politicians changing their mind. The big thing going from X-ray (2d) to CT (spin an X-ray machine around and take a ton of pictures to recreate a 3d image) did a lot to let security people see inside of a bag, but the hitch is that if you see a blob of gray is that water, shampoo or something else? The recent advance that is letting this happen is machines who will send multiple wavelengths of X-ray through the material: since different materials absorb light differently, your machine can distinguish between materials, which lets you be more sure that that 2litre is (mostly) water, and then they can discriminate

bleepblap 8mo ago
There's a whole ton of people taking about MRI -- MRIs are a completely universe than CT/X-rays
- DaiPlusPlus 8mo ago
  I think if an MRI was ever used for airport security screening it would cause more damage and disruption than the terrorist bombs it purports to detect.
  - bleepblap 8mo ago
    It wasn't -- was just noting that people keep saying "MRI", when there's no 5T fields around most security checkpoints
    - lesuorac 8mo ago
      Isn't the world of MRIs moving towards lower teslas instead of higher?
      - hansvm 8mo ago
        It's trying to, but "low" is still 0.5-1.5T.

user3939382 8mo ago

Forgive my zooming out but the overton window on this topic is in the wrong place. Airport security is dehumanizing inconvenient and unacceptable. I’d only use planes in an emergency. The living memory of what air travel is supposed to be is just gone with the sands of time. I don’t accept the shit economy version starting #1 with the cattle screening.

purpleidea 8mo ago

Heathrow is still a bullshit airport: 1) Bodyscanners: body scanners are a scam 2) They took away my 100ml contain that clearly had less than 1 cm of liquid in it because it wasn't clearly labelled as "100ml". Any idiot could know it was like 10ml full. 3) They used to do actual xray basically on people. 4) You have to re-security to transfer on connections! You already could have blown up the incoming plane, why does this even matter? I don't go there anymore. Waste of time and all security theatre without common sense.

Nextgrid 8mo ago
A trick I use to bypass the liquid restriction is to intentionally pack a sacrificial bottle in addition to whatever valuable bottle I care about. In most cases when the luggage comes for manual inspection they toss the first (sacrificial one) they see and leave the actual valuable bottle alone.
Ylpertnodi 8mo ago
> Heathrow is still a bullshit airport: Heathrow has the best Guinness+ in the world - those pumps just don't stop. * if you don't like Guinness, DON'T try it if you've already had a different beer/ ale (whatever). Try it before anything else or it's worse than the very devil spitting on your buds (!).

al_borland 8mo ago

On my last trip I bought some different deodorant, because my usual brand was .2oz over the limit. Not sure why the brand wouldn’t just go with the TSA limit to make life easy for everyone. The new stuff ended up staining all my shirts. I largely blame the TSA for having to buy all new shirts. Next time I’m going to less of a stickler for the rules and hope for the best, as following the rules yields poor outcomes. Hopefully by that time the new rules will filter out to more airports.

roschdal 8mo ago

I am sure Al-Qaeda will be thrilled about this.

yakshaving_jgt 8mo ago
Well you wouldn't want a thirsty terrorist, would you?

burnt-resistor 8mo ago

Presumably, these CT scanners involve fairly energetic photons, and if they're above 100 keV, then that's bit-flipping error territory.

wtcactus 8mo ago

25 years to do this. I had the luck of traveling by plane quite a bit before 2001 and I can tell you it was much more pleasurable. Now, the issues now-a-days are not only due to the security circus, it's true. But it does play a major role.

maximgeorge 8mo ago

[dead]

wodenokoto 8mo ago

My GF is from East Asia and has travelled almost 100 countries, anything from rich first world to poor 3rd world countries. She was absolutely shocked to find that liquid container limits were enforced in northern Europe. She would just put her makeup bag with cleansers and gels and everything in her carry-on and travel the world.

nottorp 8mo ago

Okay but for personal toiletry stuff you need the rule scrapped at both ends of your trip.

dxdm 8mo ago
Don't be sad. One step at a time. One more trip-end to connect to other trip-ends. Or do you want to wait with roll-out until the whole world is ready to do it at the same time? Always look on the bright side of life. :)
- nottorp 8mo ago
  My deodorant isn't available in those small travel containers :( And it's the only thing i really care about, I can do with any random toothpaste and shaving foam that i buy on arrival. But maybe it will happen in my lifetime.
  - dxdm 8mo ago
    Ok, that's a bummer. Here's a silly idea that is probably not new to you, but just in case: have you looked into refillable deodorant dispensers?
    - nottorp 8mo ago
      Eh, I use another product that's bearable to me when I go on plane trips. But I want mine!
      - dxdm 8mo ago
        Then my original advice applies. Don't worry, be happy! Can't recommend it enough.

hdgvhicv 8mo ago

Flew through Heathrow a few months ago. Signs flashing on the screens specifically saying laptops must be removed, security guys yelling “don’t remove laptops”

smcl 8mo ago
This was my experience too - they're visibly angry at you for following the rules
- ExoticPearTree 8mo ago
  Flying through JFK once, security lines had different rules: Line one, laptop in, shoes out. Line two, laptop out, shoes stayed. Line 3, nothing out. It was hilarious, because TSA agents would talk over each other, confusing the hell out of everyone.

hacker_88 8mo ago

Key and peele

evanjsx 8mo ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHfiMoJUDVQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHfiMoJUDVQ

alexfoo 8mo ago

And don't rely on the destination airport having the same rules when you fly back. This used to get people doing EU -> London flights. The EU rules had already been relaxed, but you got bitten by the extra restrictions when you went to fly back. Like most things, flying is a complete shitshow, but do it often enough and you get used to it and all of the foibles. Regularly flying hand luggage only is a grind as you're at the mercy of the lowest common denominator in terms of rules on what you can carry. When I had to visit a string of customers with one or two flights a day I had to submit expense claims with various toiletries purchased several times over, it was questioned by the finance department and they asked about whether I should check in a bag next time, but they stopped pushing when I said that adding a checked bag to my tickets would have been about 10 times more expensive than just buying things as and when I needed them. Hugely wasteful but then so is flying, and most of my trips could have been replaced with a video call if it wasn't for touchy-feely corporate politics. Water: I use a generic cycling bidon for travel. I empty it before security and they're happy with that. Any sane airport will have places to refill it for free, if they don't I can just buy a bottle of water and refill it. No airport I've traveled through has wanted to confiscate an empty cycling bidon and if they did it's cheap to replace.

mogoman 8mo ago

It seems that this is only in place at the security entering the terminal. I landed in Heathrow a few days ago and had to empty out my water bottle (which I got given on the flight to the UK) for the transfer security check.

RamblingCTO 8mo ago

Frankfurt has been doing that for ages (2 years now?). They just got better scanners. But they don't cover all terminals or checkpoints, so you gotta know your way around.

wiredfool 8mo ago
I don't recall it in Frankfurt last summer, but it was definitely going earlier this month. Though, they've got a weird security setup for some of the gates, so I'm sure it varied from gate to gate. Dublin and Edinburgh have had it for a while too, Dublin since last summer. Really speeds up security.
- roryirvine 8mo ago
  Yeah, even small airports like Belfast City have had it for the past couple of years. Other London area airports (Luton, City, and Gatwick - not sure about Stansted) have had it for about as long, too. Heathrow's definitely a straggler - I'm assuming it was a more difficult project for them due to their sheer size.

ivanjermakov 8mo ago

Wonder what effect it's gonna have on duty free economy. I'm sure selling beverages is the big chunk of airport's revenue.

MikeNotThePope 8mo ago
Doesn’t duty free shopping typically happen after one goes through security?
- sokoloff 8mo ago
  If you confiscate my Diet Coke at security, you have created demand for Diet Coke on the other side of security.

piokoch 8mo ago

From the beginning it was a scam to force people to buy 10 times overpriced water. Kudos to Brits that they do away with this absurdity.

Halan 8mo ago

How is this news? A lot of airports in Europe had had this for years and even in England there were terminals within the major hubs where this was already the norm

n4r9 8mo ago
Heathrow is by far the largest airport in the UK, with several times more flights per day than any other, and flights to a broader range of destinations. So it affects a lot more prospective fliers. I looked up European airports and found some mention that Rome and Milan also have this new equipment, but they're both still significantly smaller than Heathrow.
- Halan 8mo ago
  Gatwick already had it too, at least a part of it. The fact Heathrow got 30/40% more traffic than other airports in the same continent already having it doesn’t make the news worth all this noise.
  - n4r9 8mo ago
    Yes but Heathrow has around twice as many departures per day (edit after your edit:) than Gatwick. This is on BBC news. Heathrow is twice as busy as any other airport in the UK. It's the easiest major airport to reach from London (other than LCY which is not that "major"). I literally know people who are leaving from Heathrow this week and are affected by this. C'mon, it's newsworthy.
    - Halan 8mo ago
      Yeah and 50% more than Rome, but overall less than all airports already doing it in Europe. This news made front page out of two things: 1) English people do not know anything about continental Europe 2) Americans do not know anything about Europe
      - n4r9 8mo ago

gadders 8mo ago

I remember the days in the 90's when me and my wife could both carry back 5l containers of the local red wine in our carry on. I hope that comes back...

dxdm 8mo ago
The free wine on the planes has gotten better since then. ;p

thomassmith65 8mo ago

The comments here insinuating that airplane terrorism is a non-issue would make for a good chapter in Carl Sagan's Demon-Haunted World. Yes, after 9/11 airports did introduce 'security theater' methods. That is a fair. No, worrying about airplane terrorism is not pearl-clutching. The most likely explanation for its decline is that the changes the establishment made were effective. The establishment successfully dealt with the difficult problem of airplane terrorism, thereby leaving the public free to take it for granted and complain about the establishment.

James_K 8mo ago
Are we to worry about train terrorism also? Shop terrorism? A person might bring a bomb to any crowded space, it simply is not practical to check all of them.
- thomassmith65 8mo ago
  It's difficult to take down a skyscraper with a train. Yes, 'shop terrorism' can be a problem (see: the UK during the Troubles). I do agree with the implication that society must tolerate a certain amount of terrorism to avoid turning into a police state. That does not mean that airplane terrorism, without strict security, is so rare that we can ignore it.
  - kebman 8mo ago
    This is probably a massive downvote waiting to happen, but I have more faith in 9/11 being a controlled demo. Not out of evil. Just to prevent New York turning into a giant domino show.
    - thomassmith65 8mo ago
      My theory is that terrorists hijacked two airliners full with jet fuel, and crashed them into each WTC tower, causing the structure to weaken from the heat and fail.

alansaber 8mo ago

Still not allowed to bring in food, but now allowed to bring in unlimited soup? Ridiculous

ExoticPearTree 8mo ago
Where were you prohibited from bringing in food?
- retired 8mo ago
  Don't give RyanAir any ideas please.
- sdpy 8mo ago
  > Many agriculture products are prohibited entry into the United States from certain countries because they may carry plant pests and foreign animal diseases. > Prohibited or restricted items may include meats, fresh fruits and vegetables, plants, seeds, soil and products made from animal or plant materials. https://www.cbp.gov/travel/international-visitors/agricultural-items https://www.cbp.gov/travel/international-visitors/agricultur...
  - United857 8mo ago
    Airport departure security (bringing onboard a plane) is different than arrival customs (bringing into a country).

bkmeneguello 8mo ago

There is something I never understood: what if multiple people carry the limit of "explosive/flammable" liquid allowed and combine it inside the plane?

ec109685 8mo ago
Defense in depth.

pelagicAustral 8mo ago

If you think you had it bad all these years, you should come and visit the Falkland Islands. I will be brief, but I will explain what going through the Mount Pleasant Airport (MPN) feel like for the average visitor. For added context: Only one flight by a commercial airline a week on Saturday, comes in around 1300, departs around 1500. You miss it, you wait another week. - The terminal is extremely small, the plane that comes around can probably fit around 180 pax, you could not fit that many people on the check-in lounge, which means a lot of times people have to queue outside, even in the winter. - Check in is sluggish, with the Airline representatives in the Falklands calling for check in 4 hours in advance when a flight is full. - After getting your ticket, security will check your bags and you will be asked to wait an undetermined amount of time, to see if a "random" check need to take place, again, the terminal is tiny, people often crowds waiting forever for their name the be shouted by some security person. - If you manage to get passed this part, you are still not safe, security can still call your name when passing through or after immigration. Even if you are already in the wait lounge. Someone might still show up and shout your name. - Immigration will scan your passport and charge you £40 for leaving the country. - Now you are actually commit to the security checkpoint (these are the same guys that scan the bags on check-in). At any given time there is at least 10 in a 5m2 area. You are forced to take your shoes, no liquids are allowed, no toothpaste, take all electronics out of your bag, take jacket off. - You are randomly tested for drug and explosive traces (GOING OFF THE FALKLAND ISLANDS) - You may be patted - All your belongings might be checked at this point as well. All in all, you could be looking at a 2-hour ordeal from start to finish. Do yourself a favor. Go to Maldives instead.

secondcoming 8mo ago
That's crazy.
NL807 8mo ago
Dudes must be really bored there
IshKebab 8mo ago
Apart from a lack of space a lot of that is very normal, and it's hardly surprising things are a bit janky if they only have one flight a week.

mvijayaadhithya 8mo ago

Good

kebman 8mo ago

Going to Edinburgh Airport, I was reminded that the tiny water bottle I forgot in my bag could be a bomb. I just went "Oh jeez I'm sorry... Here, have some water! You look like you need it!" Then I opened the bottle and drank it. He grabbed it out of my hands and said it had to go to some lab. So I went "Ok then, the chemical compounds in there are ... H2O and perhaps some carbon...? Idk. I'm not a chemist, but I'm fairly sure the worst thing it'll do is make me burp."

Wiles_7 8mo ago
Thankfully, Edinburgh airport has relaxed it liquid rules. You are now allowed up to 2 litres, across one or more containers and they stay in your bag while going through security.

mgaunard 8mo ago

In my experience the real issue with airports is the border control, not the security check.

Pete-Codes 8mo ago

Nice to see them catch up with Edinburgh.

shevy-java 8mo ago

That liquid limit never made any real sense to me; it always seemed arbitrary. Now - I don't think I was ever affected by it in any way, shape or form, though I also rarely use(d) the plane. But to me it seemed more as if it was an attempt to meta-engineer the opinion of people, e. g. to make them fearful of danger xyz. When I look at the current US administration and how the ICE deathsquads operate (two US citizens shot dead already), with that administration instantly defending them without even any trial, then this also seems more a propaganda operation - that one being more reminiscent of the 1930s supposedly, but we had this wave of propaganda before (e. g. both Bush presidents; Noriega capture is somewhat similar to Maduro, though the latter situation seems more as if the other officials in Venezuela purposefully gave him up - watch how the sanctions will be removed in a short while).

mcculley 8mo ago
> it seemed more as if it was an attempt to meta-engineer the opinion of people, e. g. to make them fearful of danger xyz > how the ICE deathsquads operate Hanlon's Razor applies. These are not complicated conspiracies. Just myopic humans making bad decisions.

bell-cot 8mo ago

If anyone's looking for a quick "airport security is mostly theater" argument, without getting into the weeds of weapon & explosive & detection technologies - notice that pagers and similar electronics are not on the TSA's list of forbidden items - https://www.tsa.gov/travel/security-screening/whatcanibring/all-list https://www.tsa.gov/travel/security-screening/whatcanibring/... - despite their famous use as at-scale, remotely controlled explosives devices back in 2024 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Lebanon_electronic_device_attacks#Operational_details https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Lebanon_electronic_device...

jiffygist 8mo ago

Stupid question as I never flied: does the limit include drinking water?

gorfian_robot 8mo ago

Los Alamos is developing these cool resonance based detectors https://www.lanl.gov/media/publications/1663/1224-fighting-fentanyl-overdose https://www.lanl.gov/media/publications/1663/1224-fighting-f...

t1234s 8mo ago

Which companies were the big winners with all the post-9/11 security theater?

CGMthrowaway 8mo ago
Booz, L3, Rapiscan, Smiths, Leidos, Verint... their logos are mostly everywhere at the airport

lacoolj 8mo ago

I have yet to encounter a reason to take more than 3oz of liquid with me on a flight somewhere. Once the restriction was added, it seemed like "oh no how dare you" but in reality, I'm never carrying enough toothpaste to make this a problem. Are other people truly struggling with this limitation? Feels more like a perceived issue than a practical one.

teachrdan 8mo ago
In the US at least, the limit applies to containers that hold more than 3oz. So I'm prohibited from bringing an 8oz toothpaste tube with an ounce or less left in it. This is an inconvenience if I want to fly for a multi-day trip without checking any baggage.

fishywang 8mo ago

I was flying out of LHR yesterday (Monday). I read the news before so asked the agent at security check "I don't need to empty my water bottle now right?" and she was like "nah that's only for up to 2 litres in a clear/plastic bottle, not a metal flask bottle" or something along those lines. I was using a Stanley metal water bottle. So I still had to empty my bottle.

telliott1984 8mo ago

Sad to see no mention of Manchester airport in this. Seems like they flag every third bag for manual screening.