Katy AustinTransport correspondent
Getty ImagesPassengers at Britain’s biggest airport, Heathrow, can leave liquids in containers up to two litres in their bags while going through security, after it finally completed the rollout of new high-tech CT scanners.
Electronics such as laptops can also be left in luggage, while clear plastic bags for liquids no longer have to be used.
Heathrow now says it is the biggest airport in the world to have the new equipment fully rolled out across all its terminals.
But while it has become the largest airport to roll out the new high-tech scanners, it is far from the UK’s first, with Gatwick, Edinburgh and Birmingham airports having upgraded to them in recent years and increased to a two-litre limit.
Heathrow said the scanners, which provide better images of cabin bags, could service “thousands of passengers an hour with significantly greater efficiency, while maintaining high safety and security standards”.
The rollout of the new high-tech scanners across the UK has suffered a series of setbacks over the past few years.
Boris Johnson promised in 2019 that the rules about taking liquids through security in containers of no more than 100ml, inside plastics bags, would be scrapped by the end of 2022. The pandemic eventually put paid to that.
In December 2022, the Conservative government promised state-of-the-art scanning equipment would be installed in security lanes by June 2024 in the “biggest shake-up of airport security rules in decades”.
Then-Transport Secretary Mark Harper said the dominance of “tiny toiletry” was nearly over.
But, as it turned out, the June 2024 deadline was not achievable for the biggest airports – although a number of smaller ones, with fewer lanes to get sorted, did install the scanners in place before that date.
Then, on the evening of Friday 13 June, 2024, the government said those smaller airports who had already introduced the new scanners and dropped their 100ml liquids rules, must reinstate them. This triggered anger among airport operators.
The EU also announced a reversion to the 100ml rule in July that year.
There has since been a period of inconsistency. Last summer, the Transport Secretary was telling passengers to assume the 100ml rule still applied.
Heathrow chief executive Thomas Woldbye said the £1bn package of upgrades would mean passengers could spend “less time preparing for security and more time enjoying their journey”.
Passengers should note that the rule change only applies to flights leaving Heathrow, and that they must check an airport’s restrictions on luggage before boarding return flights to the UK.
