A Logical Response

If there is one thing that I have learned in twenty-something years of marriage to Val, it is that while she is more than happy to abide by rules and guidelines - she works in an occupation that is highly regulated by statute, after all - she will fiercely challenge any that either make no sense, are not logical, or are superfluous. One such set of rules concern the liquids that airline passengers can carry in their hand luggage. We have just returned from a week holidaying in Cyprus, and our experience at Stansted Airport on the outward journey highlighted how nonsensical these rules are, but also how the security staff who are supposed to implement them neither understand them completely nor actually enforce them correctly.

For the third year running, Val and I stayed at The Annabelle in Paphos, Cyprus

Restrictions on the amount of liquids that can be carried in hand luggage were introduced in August 2006 following what officials described as "a threat from liquid explosives."  It is lost in the mists of time - or perhaps was never actually defined - as to whether that threat was a credible one or not, but my suspicions are that this was a knee-jerk reaction to a threat so remote that it was barely plausible, but which was justified on the grounds that the authorities were doing something, even if it was not necessarily logical. The fact is that a mixture of everyday chemicals could be concocted on board a plane to create an explosive, but these individual chemicals would need to be refined and concentrated to the extent that they would  be volatile enough in their individual states to explode under anything other than laboratory conditions before being an attempt was made to combine then into an explosive state, a process that would need to be conducted in a temperature controlled environment that could not be replicated on an aeroplane. The palaver we all go through at airport security with our liquids is really little more than a piece of theatre that reassures the more nervous passenger that 'something is being done.'

Airport security, otherwise known as The First Circle of Hell

Having fallen foul of these rules in the past, we decided that prior to our flight to Cyprus we would pack our liquids in appropriate plastic bags so as not to go through that rigmarole of transferring toiletries into one at the airport. The first thing we noticed, having kept a bag from a previous holiday, was that the bag that airport security supply does not conform to their own restrictions. The rules say that passengers' liquid containers

 'must be in a single, transparent, resealable plastic bag, which holds no more than a litre and measures approximately 20cm x 20cm'

Two things here: First, the bags airport security give you are not 20cm x 20cm, they are 19cm x 19cm, which I grant you is little different, and the rules do say 'approximately' but if twenty by twenty is allowed, then that is what you should get. Second, there is no way that a bag 20cm x 20cm will hold a litre of liquid in bottles; it is not possible to get ten, 100ml bottles in one, but the bag itself will hold 1.5 litres of a liquid not in bottles even though the rule says it should hold no more than a litre. Already, these rules lack internal logic.

And let's go back to those dimensions: 20cm x 20cm is a two-dimensional measure - let us assume these refer to height and width - no measure for depth is stated, presumably because the bag airport security give you is flat, like a sandwich bag. But the rules do not say that passengers cannot use their own bags, so in the interest of using a bag that measured twenty by twenty rather than nineteen centimetres square, we used one that some suntan lotion came in from Boots. The bag measures exactly 20cm x 20cm square and is about three or four centimetres deep. It zips up and in all regards meets the rules imposed by airport security. This pleased Val who packed her liquids in this bag for the flight, confident that she would sail through security. I had my doubts, not because I thought Val was wrong, but simply because airport security is one of those areas where rules are for the obedience of all, not just the fools, and are applied stringently despite any logical argument against them. The people employed to apply the rules tend not to be open to negotiation or compromise.

Val used a bag exactly the same as this to get her liquids through airport security.

Inevitably, Val's attempt to take her own bag through was challenged. "It's too big," she was told. "Oh no it isn't," she replied, "yours are too small." Fortunately, Val had a tape measure with which she was able to prove that the bag was 20cm square and thus conformed to the rules.  As expected, the depth of the bag was challenged, but as Val pointed out, the rules do not mention depth. A supervisor was called, and he agreed that as the rules stand, there is no limit on the depth of the bag, and at 20cm square, and being resealable, the bag was compliant. So, the Boots bag passed its examination, and in theory, I suppose, one could take a bag that is 20cm x 20cm x20cm, through but that might be stretching it a bit far.

Meanwhile, although my meagre amount of liquids (contained in an airport issue bag) passed without comment, my other toiletries - a stick deodorant, a toothbrush, and a razor - were deemed worthy of closer scrutiny. I also had to remove my shoes, a process that seems to be required only of random passengers, with little or no logic. On a previous flight, I saw a woman asked to remove flip-flops for examination, while a baby in a buggy had his bootees removed and X-rayed.

On the way back, security staff at Paphos Airport passed Val's toiletries, still in their Boots bag, through without demur, but did investigate in some detail, a small bag containing some jewellery. The conclusion that I draw from this experience - and it is not the first time I have thought this - is that these security measures have little basis in logic.

The argument from the authorities would be that they are responding to credible threats or actual attempts. The shoe search began after Richard Reid tried to ignite explosives hidden in his shoes on a flight from Paris to Miami in 2001. In 2006, British officials foiled a plot to blow up a plane with liquid explosives, hence our having to squeeze our shower gel and toothpaste into a small plastic bag.

This is how flights will look if the normal responses to threats are taken to their logical conclusion.

In 2009, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab tried to blow up Northwest Flight 253 with a bomb hidden in his underwear. We should be thankful that the authorities did not apply their usual logic in response to that incident.