What’s causing airport queues and have the 100ml liquid rules changed?

Local TV

There have been reports of huge queues for security at some airports - what's causing this and is the problem likely to be resolved by those peak summer months?

Transcript

00:00Some people at home may have seen reports of queues at airports like Birmingham and I for one

00:05have seen all of the TikToks of people queuing and it hasn't put me in the best state of mind for

00:09going away. But some passengers have said that they've waited as long as two hours outside the

00:14airport to get through security. So understandably holidaymakers are going to be cautious when it

00:19comes to going away after seeing things like this. Essentially the hand luggage rules were due to

00:24change this summer but due to a government u-turn this is now not going ahead. Birmingham airport

00:30had already installed a brand new £60 million security screening hall including high-tech

00:35scanners to facilitate the change. Now they're having to instead use a temporary outdoor facility

00:41to carry out liquid checks before passengers go through security which is obviously causing the

00:46long queues. Is there anything we can do as passengers to avoid getting held up at the

00:50airport and potentially missing our flights? Yeah so the best advice that I would have for anyone

00:55is just to arrive at the airport on time. In times of peak travel the airport is always going to be a

01:01busy place and if you add into the mix the crowds of passengers who turn up to check in hours and

01:07hours before their actual flight time it's just going to be a disaster. So just stick to the time

01:12recommended by your airline for arrival before your flight. There's also been some to-ing and

01:18fro-ing on a hand luggage rule change that was due to be enforced this summer but that's now been

01:22temporarily put on hold. Clear up the confusion for us, what's the story there? Yeah so this is

01:27actually what's been causing the chaos at Birmingham airport. So since 2006 liquids, aerosols and gels

01:34in hand luggage must be in containers of 100 millilitres or less. Boris Johnson promised in

01:402019 though that these rules would be eased. Airports were then given the deadline of this

01:45June to update their scanners which many have already complied with but Heathrow, Gatwick,

01:50Manchester and Stansted said they wouldn't be ready in time. Now the department for transport

01:56has temporarily told airports to restore the limit.

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