ETRC hails security bag breakthrough

Joe Bates

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The European Travel Retail Council has made a significant breakthrough in its campaign to remove the threat posed to liquid sales to transfer passengers by new EU security legislation

The European Travel Retail Council (ETRC) has persuaded all 27 European Union (EU) member states and the European Commission (EC) to accept a set of standard specifications for secure tamper-evident bags that can be used for purchases of liquids and gels at airside airport stores.

The proposed bag specifications had already been accepted by Airports Council International, the International Air Transport Association and US duty-free trade body the International Association of Airport Duty Free Stores. The latest development is a vital step in ETRC’s campaign for the mutual recognition of airport security standards worldwide.

The Marshall Lightfoot Co has designed an identifying symbol to be used on all approved tamper-evident bags to help staff at security transfer points recognise that the goods come from an approved airport. The bags will be printed with a bar code for stock security purposes and ETRC recommends that retailers ensure that bags kept at the cash registers are available only to retail staff.

Industry lobbyist John Hume, who has been working with ETRC on the security issue, told RavenFox.com that individual bag sizes would be left to individual retailers. He said there was no deadline date to start using the bags, but urged retailers to act as quickly as possible. Technical specifications and a list of approved suppliers can be obtained from ETRC.

Hume said: “This is a vital step in our campaign. It gives us something to build on as we try to put pressure on the EU to recognise the security regimes of non-EU airports. We are making progress—Israel and Taiwan have now joined Australia, Singapore and Japan in applying for formal recognition from the EC and we expect more countries to follow in the next few weeks.”