Australia to employ liquids, aerosols and gels screening technology

Australia will introduce liquids, aerosols and gels screening technology for transfer and transit passengers from mid next year.

Speaking at this week’s Australian Airports Association convention in Brisbane, the Office of Transport Security’s Peter Robertson revealed that the new technology will be employed from the end of May in Australia’s major gateway airports.

The rollout follows trials of the new technology from late 2010.

The screening will be restricted to duty free items presented in secure tamper-evident bags.

It will probably include duty free alcohol, but that is still to be confirmed.

“The reason for that initially is that the technology is much more certain when you (are dealing with) face creams and perfumes and the like which have odd-shaped bottles and a different density,” Roberston said.

“It may be that some of the alarm rates may go up, so we haven’t finalized the policy settings there yet, but that’s what we’re looking at at this point, so we can get it into the market.

“We can continue to test so that when we do roll this out fully we don’t have significant backlash. We get enough complaints as it is from people who have their duty free purchases ripped off them at a screening point.”

The second phase would then be a complete lifting the ban on liquids, aerosols and gels. But that’s something that can only work if the international community is in harmony.

Europe tried to lift the ban earlier this year via a two-phase process but was forced into an embarrassing withdrawal when it failed to get global agreement.

Nonetheless aviation regulators around the world are working towards a 2013 timeframe.

“There’s no point in introducing screening technology for LAGs if the next recipient airport is not going to recognize it,” Robertson said. “It has to be one-in, all-in. And there is a very significant effort being put in by the international regulators to bring that about.”

Australia’s trial of the new LAGs screening technology will no doubt we watched with considerable interest around the globe.

And not just by regulators – the international travelling public will also be hoping for some relaxation, if not a total lifting, of the current ban.