Travelling to Europe?  Find Out About Changes Before You Go

European tourist visits to Panama have increased by 4.2% in the past 5 months.  Travelling to Europe?  Find out about the changes to hand luggage that you should take into account, according to the European Commission.  From 1 September 2024, passengers, airlines and airports will have to strictly comply with the guidelines for accepting hand luggage on flights and the content of liquids that can be carried.  These instructions relate primarily to the size of the luggage.  The European Commission has decided to lay down the accepted measurements for hand luggage, due to the controversy that often arises with passengers who carry larger sizes, or airlines that impose their own rules. 

To avoid the uncertainty that often leads to long queues at passenger check-in counters, and has even resulted in arguments that lead to lawsuits and sanctions for passengers who lose patience, the European authority stipulates that it will recognize these measurements for hand luggage: 55 cm x 40 cm x 22 cm and a maximum of 10 kilograms.  But that’s not all… it has also been stipulated that on 1 September certain restrictions will also come into force regarding the control of liquids that passengers can carry in their hand luggage when entering airports in the European Union. 

According to the European Union Aviation Security Regulation, passengers can only carry liquids with a quantity of up to 100 milliliters. But some airports that had EDSCB equipment or also called C3 Scanners, which incorporate an explosive detection system in hand luggage and would allow a larger quantity, will have to remove this equipment.  The flexibility to carry more than 100 milliliters of liquids will end, as these devices must be removed from European airports, including those in Iceland, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Norway, from 1 September.  Although the European Union has clarified that this measure will be applied temporarily, the Airports Council (ACI) has described the measure to restrict this type of scanners for hand luggage as severe. 

The equipment that will be removed allowed for better inspection and made it easier for passengers to carry a larger quantity of liquids without size restrictions.  “The modifications specifically target C3 scanners, the cutting-edge technology, which maintains best-in-class detection standards, which until now allowed passengers to carry liquids without any restrictions and store them, along with their large electronic devices, inside their hand luggage at security checkpoints,” explained the ACI. But the new restriction introduces, from 1 September 2024, a 100 ml limit for individual containers of liquids, which eliminates the main benefit that C3 scanners bring to passengers.  The European chapter of the world’s airport association warned that removing these scanners “will cause significant operational strain, the mitigation of which will require the deployment of additional staff and the reconfiguration of security controls, where possible.”