vibguy

Sorry to contradict but today you can leave all your liquids inside your baggage at US airports (as well as your tablets), only PC's have to be removed from the hand baggage , however you have to remove your shoes (unless you have TSA pre check, then you do not remove anything and you keep jacket and shoes on).
Completely inconsistent with the policy at LHR but no surprise, these US guys drive the wrong side of the road.

darthlemsip

That's happened to me at Heathrow before, only the once though - I use the zip bag from Muji. Think it was an over officious person on the day, have used it hundreds of times in Heathrow and other airports and only ever had that one issue

HilFly

The TSA were demanding that liquids be removed from baggage on Sunday.

Those with TSA pre-check can leave them in their bags.

corporate-wage-slave

Not sure how often you go travelling then! You certainly won't get away with that in LHR very often. When I see who gets pulled over for secondaries it is overwhelmingly for liquids in bags, and very often you hear "but we don't have to do this in X" (where X is increasingly the USA PreCheck or India). This is despite over 1,700 signs in LHR telling people to remove their liquids into sealable bags, plus all the verbal notifications. And it's not just UK. In fact all of the EU is supposedly on the same policy here, that all liquids are in bags and are presented separately from the rest of scanning, but in reality most countries have a laisser faire approach. In France, Belgium and to some extent AMS you best present the bag separately, AMS has a zero tolerance policy, they are prepared to dispose of all your liquids if there is evidence of you being underhand.

Despite the premise presented by danger, in my experience the UK's scanning process, for all its faults, is quite consistent. If you take out laptops, anything bigger than a Kindle, liquids, anything that looks like a liquid container, and larger packs of wires the only Secondaries you are going to get is the very quick random vapour test on the liquids. In the last 3 years I have not had a single Secondary in the UK except for the DoT mandated random vapour test, and that is off a lot of travel.

MADPhil

The UK rules require a bag with an air seal so that they can sniff it for vapours if they want to. Though I did go through a few times with a Ziploc bag with a hole in before I noticed.

Steve_ZA

Without wishing to stray too far OT there are different rules at different airports in the US, depending on what equipment they have installed. For example at SEA the only difference between TSA-Pre and regular passengers is that you can keep your shoes on: "put everything in your bag, take nothing out".

stephem

Sitting in the BA lounge in T5 now, 3rd time in and out of London this week. I've been in and out of LHR dozens, maybe 100 times over the last decade, I've never once put my toiletries in a plastic bag let alone pulled them out. I don't do this anywhere, and in all of my travels i have had liquids pulled for a rescan maybe twice. But never at LHR...

Markie

They should be catching that and putting your bag on to the naughty belt for complete unpacking and checking. You have been lucky, in fact I think you have taken my luck too!

T8191

Having consulted Management here, it appears that we have regularly gone through Security in both UK and US airports with l/h amenity kits in our carry-ons without even thinking about the liquids rule!! I am advised that she doesn't usually bother to take the BA ones now, but the fact remains we have never even considered that aspect.

OK, most of our US connections have been with TSAPre✓ in recent times ... but we must have gone through LGW [on the way home] many times as 'naughty people'.

akinldn

I have the complete opposite experience. It never ceased to amaze me the amount of ppl getting flagged for liquids at LHR even 500ml bottles of water. Sometimes, I forget the occasional small tube or liquid and they let it pass. But once you get flagged, its a long wait for security to open the bag for the world to see what you have in there.

Ziz

I often leave liquids in my bag and have never been caught out for toiletries. The occasional forgotten water bottle/diet coke can, yes. But nothing small.