Birmingham Airport boss disappointed by liquid rules change

The chief executive of Birmingham Airport said he was “very disappointed” at the changes to the rules on liquids in hand luggage.

The airport has allowed passengers to leave bottles of up to 100ml in hand luggage and not remove them for screening, thanks to high-tech scanners known as Next Generation Security Checkpoints (NGSCs).

But following a government announcement on liquids on Friday, passengers traveling from Birmingham must now remove such items again and also face an unspecified delay to plans to raise the limits to two litres.

Nick Barton said the situation the passengers were in was “not what we planned to give them”.

The new scanning technology has meant that some UK airports with this provision have already increased the carry-on limit for liquids, including gels and aerosols, to two litres.

While Birmingham Airport has upgraded the equipment, it has stuck to the original 100ml limit, citing “exceptional regulatory approval” for the new screening machines. Passengers, however, were not required to remove the contents of their carry-on bags.

But on Friday, the government announced a return to pre-technology rules.

It said the 100ml restriction was re-introduced at the six regional locations that had relaxed the rule to “allow for further improvements to the new checkpoint systems” and was not in response to a specific threat.

When asked by BBC WM how long he thought the change of government would remain in place, Mr Barton said: “We have to plan (the previous process) not to go back in the next few days.”

Transport Secretary Mark Harper said the reintroduction of the restrictions was to allow “changes” to be made to the scanning equipment.

“It is a temporary measure and we will determine when this can be reversed in due course,” he told the BBC.

Mr Barton said Birmingham Airport had spent £60m on new security screening equipment after the government told major airports to have them in place by June 1.

He called it “fantastic infrastructure” that should result in “huge speed benefits.”

Once fully operational, he said it would allow passengers to leave containers carrying up to two liters in their luggage.

He added that, meanwhile, around one in six passengers going through security in Birmingham generally did not follow procedures related to liquids, which slowed down the screening process and led to longer queues.

He said he was asking all passengers to “help themselves” by making sure there were no bottles of 100ml or more in their hand luggage.

To deal with the delays, he said the airport had “deployed a huge amount of human resources in the terminal” to speed up the security process.