Passengers at UK Airports Could Say Bye-Bye to Travel-Size Liquids Soon

The hassle of finding travel sizes for your favorite toiletries to pack in your carry-on bag may be over – well, at least in the UK. By 2024, the government is considering rolling out hi-tech 3-D scanners that would essentially scrap airport security restrictions on liquids and laptops in hand luggage. 

According to the BBC, the advanced technology is similar to CT scanners found in hospitals, but a final decision has yet to be made on whether the rollout would officially happen in two years.

As we’re sure that most LGBTQ+ air travelers are painfully aware, passengers have been restricted to only packing 100ml (3 oz) containers that also must be placed in a single, transparent, resealable plastic bag when passing through airport security. It’s become standard practice when we’re in pre-planning mode for a trip since the restrictions started 16 years ago. 

We’re sure our drag queen fam will love the possibility of this.

And we’ve all been there before when the airport security line creeps at a slow pace because passengers have to remove items from their bags. Inevitably, this usually happens when you need to make a mad dash to your departing gate, right?  

So the deal is that UK airports must install these advanced scanners by mid-2024, and a formal announcement is expected from ministers within the next few weeks. 

John Holland-Kaye, Chief Executive at Heathrow Airport, told The Times that they are slowly rolling them out. “We have just started the expansion of the security area in Terminal 3 which will have more CT scanners and have a deadline of mid-2024 from the [Department for Transport]. By then the normal passenger experience will be that liquids stay in bags.”

We’ll keep our fingers crossed this will happen. The 3-D scanners have been in use at US airports, such as Hartsfield-Jackson in Atlanta, and O’Hare in Chicago, for a few years.