The European Union at the end of April 2013 will lift its ban on liquids passing through security checkpoints as it set into motion last week a final deadline for EU airports to install new screening equipment capable of detecting liquid explosives.
Current restrictions, implemented in the wake of a 2006 mid-air bomb plot that involved liquid explosives, forbid passengers from carrying on liquids that exceed 100 milliliters in volume. However, new screening equipment that will roll out gradually in the next three years will nullify those restrictions. "The transition period until 2013 is necessary to allow for a rollout of liquids screening equipment at all EU airports," EU representatives said in a statement late last week.
The United States also has explored enhanced screening equipment as a way to overturn a similar liquid ban.
Former Transportation Security Administration administrator Kip Hawley told
BTN in 2008, "We knew immediately in August 2006 that we needed to get some technology that would allow us to quickly determine what's a threat liquid and what's not. The ban would be temporary until we could come up with a technology that would do it automatically
(BTNonline, Oct. 20, 2008)."