PASSENGERS travelling to Jersey from UK airports face more than a year of further delay before being able to benefit from revised rules about carrying liquids in hand luggage.
Although new scanners have been in operation at Jersey Airport since late 2023, bringing an end to the 100ml limit for liquids for those leaving the Island by air, most other airports in the British Isles have yet to finish installing the new equipment.
The restrictions were due to be axed on 1 June, a move that would have allowed passengers to fly with up to two litres of liquids in their carry-on luggage, but the UK government has now extended the deadline by a further 12 months.
It is not the first time the cut-off point has been pushed back. UK airports were originally given a deadline of 2022 to roll out the technology, but this was later pushed back to June 2024.
The Department for Transport said there would be “serious financial penalties” for any UK airports failing to meet the June 2025 deadline.
A spokesperson from Ports of Jersey said passengers from Jersey should check security rules at every airport they expected to pass through.
News of the UK’s 12-month extension to the deadline brought criticism from travel industry observers.
Naomi Leach, deputy editor of Which? Travel, told the Daily Telegraph that it was “imperative these changes are made as quickly as possible and that the rules at different airports are communicated clearly to passengers”.
She added: “Those airports that have failed to install the scanners in time should not increase passenger fees this year – this would be impossible to justify when this key improvement to the passenger experience has not been made.”
Paul Charles, of travel consultancy PC Agency, said airports had had long enough to prepare themselves.
He said: “I think consumers will be deeply frustrated and unhappy. They are going to have to have another summer of taking liquids out of their bags to go through the pain of security with these measures still in place.
“Airports have had long enough to plan for this, so it’s a failure for airports to prepare adequately for the summer.” Some airports have blamed the size and weight of new machinery for delays, with work required to strengthen the floors of some terminal buildings in order to cope with the extra load.
