The rules on liquids are becoming "stronger", not weaker
I have just flown from Heathrow with my baby, who has a lactose intolerance, so we brought his prescription milk powder and 5 x 200ml bottles of distilled water with us. On previous flights to Johannesburg and Faro, this was fine (I checked with BAA and BA before the first flight) but apparently they changed the rules 2 weeks ago and water of an "unspecified" source is no longer allowed and must be thrown out even for babies. If however we mixed the milk powder into the water, it becomes baby food and is allowed - but of course as it's milk, it then goes sour and has to be thrown away.
So, if it's an explosive that looks like water, adding milk powder obviously neutralises it?
It's not possible to make a liquid explosive that looks like milk and doesn't kill you when tasting 3 drops?
They did point out that next time we could bring 10 x 100ml bottles of water then pour two together after security. Because if it was a liquid explosive it can' be recombined and 10x100ml is safer than 5x200ml?
Finally, if the distilled water was in a commercially manufactured bottle and labelled as baby food, it can be in a 500ml or even 1000ml bottle and it's OK, as long as you're prepared to taste it at security. Because you can't buy empty bottles, fill them with whatever you like and glue a "baby food" label on to them?
To be fair, the security supervisor understood that the rules she was required to enforce were non-sensical (but refused to call them "stupid") and was very apologetic.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
