Stop airlines charging women extra for travelling with expressed milk

When I started reading it I thought you incorrectly thought that women had to pay to take ebm in hand luggage. I realised that you meant the much more specific situation where a woman is travelling without her baby, but still wants to transport ebm, I think mostly you mean on the return journey. The key bit is about travelling without your baby, which means that the normal hand luggage liquid rules apply. I'd just make it clearer that's what you mean, and try and make it shorter and more concise.

ChocChoc link says you can take empty bottles though, not that you can't.

Don't dump the whole petition. Can you edit it? Clarify the rules and who has made them, and clarify why you are petitioning.

Because in my opinion, the better solution for women isn't to have them travelling for days away from a baby they want to be breastfeeding. In my opinion, expressing is something to be done a bit, if a woman wants to, not to be forced into because she has to be back on the road.

As I said, I don't think that transporting litres of breastmilk is good for anyone. I think that we need to acknowledge that a breastfeeding woman needs accommodations, but I think those should be in facilitating them to stay near their baby for that first 6 months or so - just as we facilitate parents with flexible working and maternity leave.

As a freelancer, I, too was back at my desk within a couple of weeks each time (I love my job - I wasn't forced back) - but freelance is my choice. I could go and take a permanent job, and I would have had the maternity leave etc. We do have to take responsibility for our choices in these cases.

Previous threads on one of the women the petition links to were pretty unanimous in agreeing that this one woman was expecting a pretty unreasonable bending of the rules www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/2621991--to-think-the-breastmilk-dumping-woman-should-have-read-the-bloody-guidelines and www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/2621653-14ltrs-of-breast-milk-on-a-plane

Quite frankly including her 'issue' in with the petition is doing the petition no favours tbh.

Check it on for free I think, as unlimited amounts in hand luggage would be impractical.

I'm asking about the empty bottles thing because I think it's incorrect. I've never seen any guidance about this in any prohibited items list. To think a pack of expressing bags would be confiscated too seems totally incorrect as well. If you want people to sign it I think you need a lot more links and explanation as to what the exact rules are, and who is making those rules.

I'm not in the UK right now - hence my knowledge of this - I'm on planes around europe a lot, and the US/Asia occasionally. Never had an issue with my family's empty bottles.

www.caa.co.uk/Passengers/Before-you-fly/Baggage/What-items-can-I-travel-with/

So the proposal is to abandon the liquids rules? Or let you check in hold luggage for free?

There is nothing in that guide that suggests you can't transport empty containers... it says gels/liquids etc must be in containers smaller than 100ml.

That's the rule of liquids - not of empty bottles.. container size refers to the size of the container for the liquid.

EG. I once tried to travel with a half-empty bottle of anti-histamine - there was less than 100ml of liquid, but it was a 250ml bottle so it was confiscated. Had it been an entirely empty bottle, it would have been fine.

Your link is only about containers with contents, not empty ones, as far as I can see.

practical or sensible solution.. sorry - it submitted without me!

Sorry, what?

Empty bottles are restricted?

Of course they're not - you can carry as many empty bottles as you'd like in your hand luggage if they fit! - we always take empty water bottles for instance, so that's 4 litres of empty bottle that's been through multiple airports across the world, and no-one has batted an eyelid, and why on earth would they?

If you want to carry large amounts of breast milk about, you'll have to check it. If you're travelling on a budget airline, that costs extra. That costs whether you're carrying breastmilk or nappies, or you're 6'6" and need more space for your larger clothes.

I think that in this case, what someone's wanting to do something quite so unusual as carry litres of liquid around, they are the ones that should bear the brunt of that cost.

Mind you, given how luggage handlers chuck suitcases about, I don't know that I really like the idea of litres of milk in a suitcase either.. I had a vodka bottle smash once and that caused enough havoc.

I completely support breastfeeding and obviously I'm a feminist, but I can't see that if you have a young baby, you can carry on exactly as you were - something has to give - either you'll need to travel less, or use formula a bit when you haven't been able to express enough. I don't think that carrying 3 gallons of breastmilk through heathrow is really a practical or s