European airports must take a coordinated approach to lifting the ban on carrying liquids, the EU has warned.
From this Friday transfer passengers who are travelling on flights that originated outside the EU are to be permitted to carry duty-free perfume and alcohol onto connecting flights as the first phase in a strategy to relax the ban.
But transport secretary Philip Hammond has said this will not happen in the UK “for security reasons”.
All European airports are scheduled to totally lift the liquids ban by April 2013.
EU transport commissioner Siim Kallas said air passengers would face disastrous consequences if Europe did not simultaneously implement the changes.
Kallas told The Guardian newspaper the transfer rule coming into force this week was of “marginal effect” but said it was crucial the April 2013 total lifting of the ban was observed by everyone.
“If some countries lift the ban and some do not then it will be disastrous,” he said.
Should some airports adhere to the ruling and some continue banning liquids, the consequences could be long queues as confused travellers go from one airport that allows liquids to a plane heading for another airport that does not.
Kallas added: “Some airports are questioning the rationality of lifting the ban because life is easier to continue as it is. Politically that is unacceptable.”
by Dinah Hatch
