Duty-free booze confiscated - watch out

ultrak3wl

I bought a 1-litre bottle of Jack Daniel's in the Montreal airport duty-free shop. Carried it onto the KLM plane and shoved it in the overhead locker no problem. Flight landed in Amsterdam Schipol and I hung around the airport terminal for a couple of hours waiting for the final leg of my London flight home. I was astounded when they took my booze off me under their new "no liquids on the plane" scheme. I was absolutely livid but turns out they really are allowed to. So watch out.

jmarko

kinda understandable but v annoying all the same! have a moan to klm - see if you get some money!

peterg1965

ridiculous!

reehsetin

i think at heathrow they sealed everything you got from duty free so there wouldnt be a problem, dont know if they still do it any more, classic example of why they should though

ultrak3wl

It's so brainless though. It doesn't make logical sense for it to be "unsafe" to carry onto some KLM flight but simultaneously perfectly OK that it only just got off its previous KLM flight.

The security bloke was quite blatant that had I bought the exact same item in their own duty-free instead he would have let it through no problem. It's so obviously nothing to do with "security" and all about making a profit.

Felix

Why didn't you check it into luggage?

ultrak3wl

Felix wrote:

Why didn't you check it into luggage?

Well you can't - you check your luggage first, then go through security and passport, then get to duty-free shop after that.

alanrowell

All EU airports are subject to the same liquid rules as are in force in the UK - ie you can only take 100ml bottles through security. This applies to all flights including connecting flights like the OP had.

Once through security there's nothing stopping you buying duty free as long as you aren't going to transit another EU airport.

OP couldn't check the Duty Free because he was airside and therefore there's nowhere to check luggage. He would have had to pass through immigration & customs in order to check the Duty Free

Felix

ultrak3wl wrote:

Well you can't - you check your luggage first, then go through security and passport, then get to duty-free shop after that.

You could have checked it in at Schipol, you had 2 hours so plenty of time to go out of arrivals and back to departures to check it in.

ultrak3wl

Well my bags were already checked through to London so I think trying to get them located, unchecked, things put in, and rechecked is OTT even if the airline would do it which is unlikely. What I will do next time though is either get a direct flight to London or just not buy stuff. You could presumably still come unstuck though if say there was weather and your direct flight was diverted.

ManAtHome

Should have passed it round...

And yes, it is ridiculous if you were air-side all the time in Schipol and it was still sealed.