to chuck a mental in airport security?

[hobnob57]

Context: have recently had a mmc and mum had a heart scare. Was returning from visiting her, on my own with dd (2).

DD has ranitidine medicine. I decant some into a 25ml bottle and carry her prescription. Airport security would not let me through unless her 25ml bottle was in a one-litre plastic bag. They offered to sell me one for £3 because the one I hoked around for was too big.

FFS. Why is medicine any less of a security threat in a sandwich bag?

I'm afraid I made a fool of myself, was rude and then burst into tears. Really could have done without some stupid jobsworth when in an airport with a toddler at 7am and faced with plane, bus, train and automobile journey ahead.

Gosh, feel better now. I don't normally rant

Perhaps we should challenge it, but not at the security check areas, I agree they are just trying to do a job, I know I do similar stuff and get ranted at.

I would like the aviation authorities to ensure its consistant at all the airports so we know what to expect.

TBH I fly once a month with just hand luggage and I usually have no problems. Was a bit one time, security guy asks me to sniff his wrist and asks what do you think, big giggle haha, I said its very nice pal but do you really think you should be playing with some poor sods aftershave you have confiscated???

Never mind the resealable bag absurdity. Why are they so terrified of my conditioner? I tell you I could have checked in a number of bombs to go in the hold, but try to carry on some John Frieda conditioner for curly hair in a resealable bag and the world goes nuts. See apparently the problem is that even though there is less than 100 ml of the condtioner left in the tube, the tube size was originally greater than 100ml, and is therefore a threat to world peace.

Farking ridiculous rules.

And I stand there, barefoot, being patted all over by security people who are exhibiting an unhealthy interest in the underwiring on my bra, watching them swabbing my laptop to confirm that it is in fact a laptop, and I think the world has gone utterly bonkers.

oh joy, i have all of this to look forward to tomorrow, im flying to india...plus i'm a muslim who wears a scarf, but am not wearing a scarf in my passport photo!

have packed my resealable clear plastic bag tho!

We fly a lot and it really isn't difficult to comply with the rules. Being prepared means everyone gets through security more easily. I don't have an issue with that.

I think the point is, they keep changing the rules every 5 minutes and at each airport in the UK (and overseas) so you just don't know what it is they actually want. I live abroad and have flown approximately 12 times this year and every time it is different. Sometimes they want to inspect the bags/baby food/drink, other times they don't. Sometimes they want baby in buggy, sometimes out.
Interestingly enough, the most lax security was flying back from the States in the summer where they weren't even interested in searching us and the worst was leaving Saudi Arabia (where there is nothing in that country that you could possibly want to smuggle out!)
In the past though they have always provided plastic bags free of charge so its interesting to read that now they are running some sort of bag scam. Maybe to pay for their staff christmas party?
I can understand your frustration OP but guess throwing a mental at security isn't the way to make your pointas no doubt you will just get a harder time from them.

jeez, I just lie.

gagamaa... I too accidentely left a carton of juice in my bag and it wasnt found. I was mortified as I adhered to the rules and it was a genuine mistake

Also re puschairs buggys.....my travellin one is small but what happens when someone with a great big ones gets stuck going through the x-ray machine

DH recommends you all fly through London City Airport in future as it has almost no security whatsoever and they don't insist on plastic bags/100ml containers/any restrictions on hand luggage. He flies through there regularly on business and was horrified when we went via Stansted for our hols last year and encountered plastic bag/no shoes security hell, as he'd had no idea these restrictions even existed.

You may have to drag yourselves and dcs up in business suits and look grumpy and self-important to get this kind of treatment at London City, though...

If it was really about security, they'd give you a receipt so you could claim your property back on your return. Rather than stealing it. Theft is the intention to deprive someone of their property - exactly what is happening here.

Alternatively as someone suggested BAA could provide sufficient employees to actually get passengers through the queue with minimum fuss and bother. But that's clearly a ludicrous idea!

Sorry, I've been away being Christmassy

I chucked a mental because I'd just said good bye to my ill mother and I was having a hormone crash after my mmc and had lost my usual impeccable ability to reason. When the woman at security looked at the sippy cup and tiny bottle of medicine which I had put in the tray separately to my hand luggage, ignored the sippy cup (I had to ask if she wanted me to taste it) and held up the medicine, she said,'it would be ok if it was in a bag'.
I felt a surge of hormones and said,'you're not seriously telling me that a bag makes a difference? That's ridiculous'. And started shaking.
She called over her supervisor who told me that they would sell me 2 for £3. I had tried at home to find a regulation 20cmx20cm bag but couldn't find one. I pulled out one which I had found, but which was bigger than regulation size. It was not good enough.
I lost it at this point and dissolved in tears, explaining that I'd just had a miscarriage, I was travelling alone with my daughter, and my mother had just nearly had a heart attack, and he proffered a plastic bag in my direction, but muttered that it is the 'law' to have a regulation sized bag.
I left departures an emotional wreck and fuming.

I agree with the posters who think, as I do, that the rules (they are NOT 'law' - see here) can be applied with common sense. The bags are there to limit the total volume of liquid, and whether my 25ml bottle was in a 20cmx20cm bag or bigger, it posed no more of a threat to anyone.

I just think it is ridiculous. We are all fallible, and those of us who do not travel frequently and are a little absentminded are treated with disdain and made to fell unnecessarily like criminals. I do travel from other airports occasionally and have never had such trouble. This instance, I was travelling from Belfast International and I will do my utmost to avoid that airport again in the future.

The trouble with the advice to travel out of London City Airport is that you can only go to a tiny few destinations - from memory Amsterdam,Antwerp, Dusseldorf, Barcelona
Basel (but not Zurich or Geneva) and Dublin. There might be one or two more but that's just about that.

The second issue is that you'll always have to go through an airport on the way back and that airport will have security rules in place that will differ from your outbound.

My most jobsworthy encounter was at Heathrow on a connection. It was at the stage where the rules were no liquids or gels unless purchased at duty free and you had a receipt for them. I bought a Juicy Tube lipgloss in the duty free at Shanghai. On the connection through Frankfurt, they tried to confiscate my newly bought lipgloss. I (triumphantly) produced my receipt. "Oh they said, but we can't read that receipt, it's in Chinese." ...

should say going to Heathrow via Frankfurt - an entirely unnecessary connection in itself but that is another story

OP - I don't blame you for getting upset - it is entirely unnecessary

Last time I flew through London City with the kids it was like being VIPS, no security at all and 2 or 3 security people just for us. Certainly no use of silly bags. It must be a BAA thing.

I am now wondering what I am going to do about crutches in the summer? Will I have to crawl through the screening thing on my knees? And I can't get my shoes on and off by myself - what happens then? Should I book some sort of undignified disabled person service and put myself in one of their wheelchairs?? (Yuk).