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“We are hearing of confiscations of the magnitude of 1,200 litres a day in certain places.” Those are the words of European Travel Retail Council President Frank O’Connell in a briefing to The Moodie Report yesterday on the impact of the new 6 November EU aviation security regulations which mean that passengers arriving in EU/EEA airports and then transiting onwards will have liquids/gels of over 100ml confiscated.
“This is the greatest single threat to our industry ever,” O’Connell adds, warning that sales to transit passengers may be lost forever if a solution is not found.
He’s right. But what alarms us is the fact that even one litre, let alone 1,200 A DAY in certain locations, is being confiscated. The rules may be wrong but they are clear. Those transiting passengers WILL have their duty free liquid/gel items over 100ml confiscated at the transit airport.
How can anyone therefore be selling to them? Isn’t this a clear question of conscience?
Are the airports doing the seizing – and copping the consumer flak – noting where the travellers bought the goods? Are tthose same airports then notifying 1) the ETRC and 2) the airports selling goods under what is dangerously close to false pretences?
What is happening to those 1,200 litres of alcohol? Maybe it should be sold off to raise money for the funding of a campaign that gets more urgent by the day.
In the meantime, those airports and retailers selling goods that they know will later be confiscated – or which haven’t bothered to find out where the traveller is headed, which is just as bad – are effectively doing nothing else than shooting themselves, and this industry, in the foot. [Photo: Courtesy of the Cannes Dailies]