Airport security discarded ALL my frozen expressed milk before our flight

[Nadsthakur]

During security screening, approximately 25 ounces of my frozen expressed breast milk was confiscated and discarded. I was told that because it was frozen, it could not be tested and therefore could not be taken through security.

I explained several times that this milk was for my 8-month-old daughter, who is unable to latch and is exclusively fed expressed breast milk. This was not simply a drink or an inconvenience, it was my daughter's only prepared source of nutrition for our journey. Despite explaining this, I was told there was nothing that could be done, and I had to stand there and watch as the milk was thrown away.

I cannot put into words how upsetting this was. Expressing 25 ounces of breast milk takes an enormous amount of time, dedication and physical effort. It means pumping throughout the day and night, carefully storing every bottle and planning ahead. Every ounce represents hours of work. To have it thrown away in front of me, after explaining exactly how important it was, was absolutely heartbreaking.

What made the situation even worse was the attitude of the officers involved. Throughout the interaction, I felt they showed very little empathy or understanding of how serious this was. I was clearly distressed and repeatedly explained that they were taking away my baby's only food for our journey. Rather than trying to help, showing compassion or explaining whether there were any alternative screening options, my concerns were simply dismissed.

After my daughter's food had been thrown away, I was handed a customer feedback card and sent on my way. It genuinely felt as though nobody cared that an 8-month-old baby had just lost the only food I had prepared for her. The complete lack of compassion shown towards me as a mother was deeply upsetting and made an already distressing situation even worse.

Instead of looking forward to our holiday, I boarded an international flight feeling anxious and devastated, worrying about how I was going to feed my daughter while we were away. No parent should ever be put in that position.

Before travelling, I checked the guidance available to passengers. Ryanair's website clearly states that parents travelling with an infant can bring as much baby milk as needed for the flight, provided it is presented for inspection. I relied on this information when preparing for our journey. At no point was I made aware that frozen expressed breast milk could be refused because it could not be tested, and I was given no alternative option when I reached security.

I do not know the names of the officers involved, but im sure they can be identified through CCTV footage and staff rosters for the security checkpoint.
I want Manchester Airport to provide a full explanation of why my daughter's expressed breast milk was confiscated.
The specific policy or security procedure that required it to be discarded.
An explanation of why no alternative screening method. The time and physical effort it took to express and store it, and the significant distress, anxiety and disruption this caused to both me and my family.im supposed to enjoy my holiday and now im stressed in morroco about how I will feed her. She doesnt latch and only has expressed milk. Besides complaining to the Airport what else can I do so no other family goes through this.

And Lockerbie.

It's devastating. The more you think about it, the harder it is to care about whatever constitutes sufficient hand holding for whoever fails to read the regulations and then tries to argue about it. You don't want soft hearted, "be kind" empaths doing this job. You need people who will be clear, firm, dispassionate and not distracted by a load of emotive crap.

You can take all the milk you need in hand luggage, it just needs to be fresh, that's all. What's unreasonable?

@ThatCyanCat I see you have no answers when I draw your attention to the exaggerations that you have been posting .
People can scroll past my additions .
It's important to me to call you to account because as one example , your repeated posts about how security staff can't be counsellors has other posters telling me that people who ignore the rules don't need counselling.
I've never said they did ,of course they don't.
But your endless remarks about how staff can't be expected to be counsellors gives the impression that posters are expecting this and I'm supposed to be doing the same .
I assume that as you are unable to defend your exaggerated posts and you are concerned about ' clogging ' up the thread you will let this be the end of our exchange

Oh good God I thought you said you were off? Please stop, it's worse than useless. Go see to all those important RL things you have, you're not at all over invested or angry, it's everyone else who needs to calm down, so it should be easy. Please, we have actually informed people on here saying useful stuff and you're clogging it up.

I don't think you will ever please people who do not read the rules. If they don't value them then you will always get someone bursting into tears in a drama or shouting because they have been caught out.

It's about wanting to blame someone else rather than take responsibility.

I don't think you can reason with people acting like this in a emotional way. Nor should you actually have to in a lot of cases because the reaction is completely unreasonable and irrational.

Pandering to it doesn't help. Airport staff are hard enough to recruit. They already have huge amounts of responsibility.

Passengers need to take some responsibility here too.

Why do you think it’s about people’s feelings around breastfeeding? I EBF my child until he was 3 and I think OP is very much in the wrong here.

@ThatCyanCat if you don't want to " clog " up the thread I suggest you stop criticising me .
Then I won't feel the need to defend myself.
Go see to all those important RL things you have,
I've never said I had important things to do.- why say this?
It's typical of your exaggerating.
Why post at all of you just want to insult ?
It makes me want to defend myself and that prolong an exchange that you say you want to end .

@CalmWriter

It's fascinating that on planes is the only risk we focus on. Why is that, I wonder?

Who is the "we"...there's a whole sub-section of the UK DfT that deals with risks to all firms of transport (TranSec).

Anyhow one reason the SMEs give is because it is relatively easy to enforce testing at airports without bringing traffic to a grinding halt...

Do 100% testing at major railway stations/tube stations and see how you get on.

It's also frankly a case of the airports and the aviation industry wanting to make themselves a harder targer then other dorms or transport so encouraging those who wish to cause problems to consider other options.

I am actually pandering to you by acknowledging these total time wastes of posts, and as everyone can see, it is encouraging you. This is why airport staff don't pander and coddle. It wastes everyone's time, it makes the time waster think they are important, it encourages more of the same, and in the case of airports, it makes no difference to the outcome. Either the milk is chucked and the time waster boards, or the milk is kept and the time waster doesn't board. Nobody cares either way.

Take this to IM. You can IM me. Take all this interminable time wasting nonsense and send it to me in IM. That way you can do all your me railing and irrelevance and the thread won't suffer.

I am actually pandering to you by acknowledging these total time wastes of posts, and as everyone can see, it is encouraging you. This is why airport staff don't pander and coddle. It wastes everyone's time, it makes the time waster think they are important, it encourages more of the same, and in the case of airports, it makes no difference to the outcome. Either the milk is chucked and the time waster boards, or the milk is kept and the time waster doesn't board. Nobody cares either way.

Take this to IM. You can IM me. Take all this interminable time wasting nonsense and send it to me in IM. That way you can do all your me railing and irrelevance and the thread won't suffer.

I was just thinking that. I dunno about everyone else, but I tend to bring my tits with me on tbe plane.

I'm not offended in the slightest. I just think you're making quite a leap by deciding that a mother travelling with a baby and three young children is bound to spend her holiday complaining. You've invented an entire fictional holiday based on a few posts. Are you a bit jealous she's on holiday? Maybe take a break from being so venomous.

Exactly there really can't be many who'd want to bring frozen milk on a flight.
I do get not wanting to express on a cattle class flight but most airports will have a mother and baby room.
And even if you are feeding expressed your likely to be expressing and feeding within a 24hr period, no need to freeze

Surely if you were in this situation you’d just book the window seat and cover yourself and pump in relative privacy?

This neatly sums the whole thing. The OP misunderstood the rules. When that was pointed out to her there were two routes she could have taken; accept responsibility, apologise and look for a solution, or alternatively refuse to accept any responsibility, seek to blame something or someone else and demand to be able to break the rules. She chose the latter.

How long would it have taken in the current heat for milk to defrost anyway? Assuming she was at security a few hours before departure - or three if following mumsnet best practice ;) - then I reckon the frozen milk could have been defrosted in time to still catch the plane :)

That's not really what happened though, is it?

The OP actually admitted later that she'd relied on Ryanair's guidance and hadn't checked the airport's rules, so saying she "refused to accept any responsibility" just isn't accurate.

She can accept she misunderstood the rules and still be upset about losing hours and hours of expressed milk. Those two things aren't mutually exclusive.

Yes. One upset post from OP followed by three short ones and an acknowledgment of her mistake.

Whereas this poster, 20 pages later, is making up scenarios about whether ‘this type of person’ is capable of enjoying herself on holiday. It’s quite fascinating.

When that was pointed out to her there were two routes she could have taken; accept responsibility, apologise and look for a solution, or alternatively refuse to accept any responsibility, seek to blame something or someone else and demand to be able to break the rules. She chose the latter.

No she didn’t? She acknowledged her mistake on her fourth post and hasn’t returned. Why did you make that up?

I never pumped much but it would depend on who was beside me. Random strange man while I've got a baby on my knee, maybe not. 😬

Op was travelling with 4 kids, and presumably at least one other adult. You'd assume some of the kids were in her row and the other adult would be able to manage the children.

Do you think terrorists are above using breast milk as a cover for terrorism? Naivety is no better than paranoia.

I thought it was clear that I meant she had two options at the airport. She chose the blame someone else option, and then came here to try and vilify the security staff :)

Ryanair’s policy on their website is clear, it referred to
liquids, ice is not liquid.

OP acknowledged nothing!

All she said was she should’ve read the airports guidance, not that she didn’t comprehend ice is clearly not a liquid and she shouldn’t have stood arguing the toss holding up others that do comprehend the rules waiting!

She did acknowledge she'd relied on Ryanair's guidance instead of checking the airport's guidance. That's literally what she said.

You're now adding a whole load of things she never said or did. We don't know how long she spoke to security, whether she held anyone up, or whether she was "arguing the toss". That's all assumption.

Being upset that hours of expressed milk were thrown away doesn't mean she was refusing to accept the rules. She can accept she misunderstood the guidance and still be upset about what happened.

Ok. Point taken. Thinking, as her fourth and final post wasn’t enough of an acknowledgment to satisfy you, I’m a bit worried that we’re more than halfway through this thread and you might run out of available posts to fully vilify her. Maybe consider setting up a second thread to ensure the mission is completed 😊