Deutsche Lufthansa AG, other airlines and European airports are preparing for expected chaos when new rules restricting liquids on board aircraft, even soccer players' urine samples, take effect Nov. 6.
``This will be a mess in the first couple of weeks'' as security officials confiscate newly banned items from
passengers' carry-on bags, Peter Andres, Lufthansa's vice
president of corporate security, said at an airport conference in Madrid.
Under the new rules, liquids passengers bring on board will have to fit in containers of no more than 100 milliliters, packed in plastic bags no bigger than 1-liter.

Robert Missen, deputy head of aviation security for the
European Commission, said that before lawmakers made the new rules, they spoke with retailers, airports and other affected groups, including UEFA, soccer's European ruling body.
``Believe it or not, there's an awful lot of urine being
taken around by UEFA after the football players take their urine tests,'' Missen said.
Passengers will have to stick to the bottle-size rule, and
they will have to put every form of liquid, gel or paste into a re-sealable plastic bag so that security screeners don't have to add up amounts or argue about how full a bottle is, Missen said. There are exceptions for items such as medicines and baby food.
In addition, travelers will be required to take off all
jackets and coats before going through metal detectors so that they can't hide bottles in their pockets, he said.

The new rules will be published on Oct. 17 and implemented as of Nov. 6, Missen said. The size of carry-on bags allowed will be reduced as of May 6, 2007. It will be up to airlines and airports to inform their customers about the new regulations, and some expressed their
dismay during the conference.
``I still see us in a reactive mode on these threats''
because of pressure from politicians and the media to come up with a response to the liquid-bomb situation, Lufthansa's Anders said. ``What we are doing at the moment is not risk-based.''
Nancy Gautier, a spokeswoman for Airports Council International, said she worried about the effect on duty-free sales. For example, a passenger who buys a bottle of bourbon at New York's John F. Kennedy Airport, then flies to Frankfurt and on to Zurich will see the liquor confiscated in Frankfurt as of next month.

There will have to be a new level of bilateral agreements between countries and the EU to govern duty-free items for such cases, Missen said in an interview. Purchases at airport shops for flights within the EU will be allowed, as long as the bottles are packed in tamper-free, sealed bags.
``It's unfair, but in the short term I see no solution that can solve the problem,'' he said, adding that lawmakers had no choice but to respond quickly to the new threat.
The regulations will be routinely reviewed and possibly
revised if new technologies are developed to allow fast machine- scanning of liquids.
``Now that there's a demand for it, the manufacturers will be looking at the issue,'' he said. Still, the EU would not require that such machines be installed in each of the region's 800 airports, and liquid restrictions will probably never be abolished, he added.