Trip report time!

I was traveling JNB-LHR-DFW-LAX, and purchased three bottles at the JNB duty free shop. As a nice touch there, they give you the bags right away, you do not have to pick them up at the gate.

They were packed in two different bags. The first contained one bottle, with some foam wrapped around it to protect it. The second contained two bottles, in a cardboard 'buy two and save' box.

At LHR, where this is also brand new, the first bag was placed unopened in a standard tray with a foam insert through the X-ray. The second bag had to be opened by the screeners to remove the individual bottles, which were then sent through the X-ray just like the first. They then had me take the bottles over to the security desk, where they took a new STEB out of a safe and resealed the two bottles in their cardboard carrier. There were a few hiccups, but it was a pretty quick process.

At DFW it was a bit different situation. I removed the two bags from my luggage and placed them through the X-ray in a bin, after which a TSO took the bin to the extra-screening area to check them out. He was not fully sure in the process, and soon three or four more TSOs came over to assist. The rules were clear, the receipt had to be dated within the past 48 hours, and the bottles had to be transparent.

The TSO opened both of the bags, checked the receipts, and then placed each bottle into a CEIA EMA scanner, which was pretty quick to scan. Once all of the bottles passed, they were placed back in the same bags and resealed with "Inspected by TSA" tape. I was then sent on my way.

Overall, the process wasn't too bad, but it definitely added about ten minutes in both LHR and DFW. I would imagine that the process will be faster in the future, as more screeners learn the process. If transiting LHR, I would advise to get one STEB per bottle so they do not need to be bagged again, but through DFW they will all be opened so this does not matter.

I suspect that this may be expanded to more than duty free liquids in the future, as it truly seems like a training exercise for the screeners, and a test to see how much time it adds to each passenger's screening. Duty free liquids are not particularly high volume, so a few minutes once in a while isn't so bad. If everybody brought a bottle of Coke through security and this whole process had to be done for every passenger, it would be a nightmare.