Many frequent travellers know the feeling. You’ve whipped off your belt, patted yourself down for loose change, and passed through the airport security scanners. Then, when all you wish to do is try and enjoy the airport experience, your little carry-on suitcase zooms into the lane of doom – all thanks to a stray bottle of perfume you were unlikely to use anyway.
This, along with the fiddly rummage through hand luggage as you pop little bottles of decanted liquids into a plastic bag, is about to become a thing of the past – at one London airport, at least.
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London City Airport, which pipped London Luton to claim the title of the UK’s best airport in Condé Nast Traveller’s 2022 Readers’ Choice Awards, is planning to scrap the current 100ml limit on individual liquids.
This game-changing development is thanks to the installation of two new generation CT security scanning lanes, capable of assessing any danger posed by liquids in seconds. The airport already has two state-of-the-art scanners, and successful trials mean two more are on the way.
The third scanning lane will arrive by mid-March 2023, followed by the fourth and final one by the end of March 2023 – meaning the restrictions currently in place are set to be scrapped in time for the Easter holidays, when millions of travellers are set to escape the UK in search of warmer temperatures.
Under the new rules, liquids up to two litres can be kept inside bags, significantly speeding up the security process. Business travellers will also benefit, as laptops will no longer need to be removed from cases.
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The exciting news is the latest in a series of achievements and developments for the airport, which was once seen as an airport for scrambling business travellers.
January 2023 saw 217,000 travellers pass through London City Airport, and 225,000 did so in February – an 82 per cent rise on the airport’s 2022 numbers despite three days of significant fog disruption.
Amsterdam, Edinburgh and Zurich are the airport’s three busiest routes, with Zurich benefitting from a renewed post-pandemic interest in ski holidays. The amount of travellers using the airport as a departure point, in particular, is set to increase as Londoners look to make the most of flexible office schedules and embark on last-minute European city breaks. It certainly helps that London City Airport had the best on-time performance record of all London airports in 2022, with more than 80 per cent of flights departing when scheduled.
