EU strives for clarity on liquids

Following an alleged threat to US-bound flights in August 2006, almost all countries have followed the UK and US lead to enhance their security procedures, particularly with regard to liquids.

As a consequence, passengers today face regulations governing the volume of liquids such as cosmetics, baby foods and medicines they can take on board. Some countries, however, place much greater weight on these restrictions than others, leading to mistrust, confusion and some anger.

In February 2008, Olivier Jankovec, director general of ACI Europe, spoke of the "increasing passenger frustration and the extraordinary waste generated by the current security regime". The amount of liquids surrendered at European airports was significant and showed no sign of falling, he said. Jankovec noted that Munich airport alone was processing a tonne of liquids per day, adding that "this is not an isolated case".

ACI Europe argues that the ultimate solution to the problem has to be found in technology, which would identify potentially hazardous liquids quickly and cheaply - but this will take time to develop.

Until then the industry and aviation authorities in Europe and the European Commission are working on gaining wide acceptance of EU requirements which provide the legal framework for passengers travelling from approved non-EU country airports to be able to travel freely with duty-free liquid purchases when transferring to other destinations from airports within the EU. This is not a peculiarly European problem but as countries with airlines flying into Europe cohere around a common approach, a worldwide solution could be in sight.

According to Georgina Graham, director of security and facilitation at IATA, at least 43 countries currently implement a form of restriction over liquids, aerosols and gels (LAGs), including the US, EU members and Australia. 288 of 928 words