If your travel routine involves regularly flying out of airports in the U.K., you’ve almost certainly seen some changes in security policies recently. More specifically, the rules governing liquids in one’s carry-on bags have changed — with Edinburgh Airport declaring liquids below two liters in size to be completely fine. As the BBC reported, that has to do with technologically advanced scanners that make detecting potential explosives much easier.
Does this mean that airports in the U.S. might wind down their restrictions on liquids in carry-on bags next? With the TSA changing its policies around shoe removal, it doesn’t sound implausible. But it turns out there are bigger issues afoot when it comes to detecting liquid explosives — and the technological upgrades to detect those are still, for some airports, some time away.
Writing at the Associated Press, Josh Funk chronicled a technological issue facing some airports in the U.S. The issue is the same reason that not every U.K. airports has done what Edinburgh Airport has: while some airports have CT scanners on hand, not all of them do. CT scanners allow security screeners to examine different objects in more detail; their precursors do not.
Unfortunately, as Funk reports, there are 432 airports in the U.S. that require such scanners; only 255 of them have this technology installed as of now.
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Will its members be willing to pay for new experiences?As the Associated Press details, just buying new scanners is only part of the solution. CT scanners are larger than the machines they would be replacing; Funk writes that “sometimes floors must be reinforced and checkpoints have to be redesigned” when the new devices are implemented. All of which suggests that that the “3-1-1 rule” is likely to stick around for a little while longer.
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