“Exciting” and “Heathrow” rarely go in the same sentence, but the airport has today announced a milestone that passengers will no doubt appreciate.
Heathrow Airport completes installation of new scanners
Heathrow Airport has just completed a £1 billion tech upgrade, intended to deliver faster and smoother security. The biggest implication here is that the traditional 100ml liquids restriction has been lifted across all four terminals (T2, T3, T4, T5).
Now passengers can travel with liquids of up to two liters in their carry-on bags. There’s no need to remove liquids or electronics from bags. This move is also expected to save around 16 million plastic bags per year, since previously liquids had to be placed in them.
Heathrow is now the largest airport in the world to have fully rolled out next generation CT security scanners, and by connection, to not have a 100ml restriction on liquids. These updated scanners are capable of servicing thousands of passengers per hour with significantly greater efficiency, while maintaining high safety and security standards.
For context, the UK started relaxing liquids restrictions back in 2024. This had some ups and downs, but the idea was that if a checkpoint had the next generation scanners, then the liquids restrictions didn’t apply. As you’d expect, that can be sort of tough to plan around, so it wasn’t exactly an ideal system.
It’s fantastic to see the airport now complete this rollout, so passengers know exactly what to expect. To state the obvious, just keep in mind that if you’re connecting elsewhere and have to clear security, then the 100ml restriction could still apply, so be prepared for that.
When will we see a similar move in the United States?
Here in the United States, we of course still have the 100ml restriction for liquids in carry-on bags. When could that change? Well, in 2024, under the Biden administration, a TSA spokesperson indicated that restrictions would likely remain in place until 2040, which is the timeline with which next generation scanners are expected to be rolled out:
“TSA is still deploying Computed Tomography (CT) units that are capable of screening larger sizes of liquids, however the agency will not be able to change the current 3-1-1 liquids rule for some time to come, because there are about 2,000 screening lanes in about 430 airports. We are anticipating that it may not be until 2040 that we have CT units fully deployed across the nation and have the capability of changing the requirement across the system.”
That being said, under the Trump administration, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has indicated that this policy might be revisited sooner than that. In an interview, Noem said “the day I walked in the door, I started questioning everything TSA does,” adding that “I will tell you, I mean, the liquids I am questioning.” She stated that “maybe the next big announcement is what size your liquids need to be,” and that they’re “looking at it.”
So we’ll see if anything comes of that. The Trump administration certainly goes through a lot of headlines, but whether something actually becomes of a situation is a different story…
Bottom line
Heathrow Airport has completed installation of new security scanners, and as a result, has also fully lifted the 100ml liquids restrictions for carry-on bags. Travelers can now take liquids of up to two liters, and can leave them in their bag, along with electronics.
This is fantastic news, as Heathrow is now the biggest airport in the world to have such a policy. Here’s to hoping we see similar changes in the United States sooner rather than later.
What do you make of this Heathrow Airport milestone?
