Sunday, February 11, 2007

Sky's the limit for air travellers who try to beat ban on fluids

Holidaymakers are resorting to desperate and sometimes bizarre measures to beat the ban on carrying fluids on flights. Frustrated travellers have frozen bottles of water, emptied soup into a plastic bag and even carried out a "dirty protest" against security regulations imposed in November.

The rules - introduced after an alleged transatlantic terror plot involving US-bound aircraft - limit passengers to 100ml quantities of fluids, gels and pastes which must be carried in transparent sealable plastic wallets.

Security staff at Manchester airport, which revealed the extreme examples of behaviour, say they are still having to confiscate thousands of litres of liquids every week despite repeated reminders of the restrictions.

One passenger was so angry at having his deodorant confiscated that he publicly urinated into a plastic bag, while another traveller claimed that his four bottles of frozen water were solids and therefore exempt from the rules.

Airport staff also cited the case of a woman who decanted soup into a plastic wallet so she could have her lunch on the plane and of a male traveller who downed a 750ml bottle of vodka in front of security staff because he could not take it with him. The man was later removed from the flight for being drunk.

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