A woman has vowed she would “never come back” to the UK after airport security forced her to throw away £236 worth of toiletries
Chloe Jade Meltzer, 29, was transferring through London’s Heathrow Airport when she claimed to have been the victim of “brutal” rules enforced by the country’s airport security.
The travel blogger said she was forced to get rid of half of her toiletries because they would not fit in the standard plastic bag.
Chloe, who was travelling from San Francisco, California, USA, to Cotonou, Benin, West Africa, said: “London Heathrow has a history of losing bags and I could not risk not having my bag. So I had to take all of my toiletries, which were all within the 100ml limit.
“However, last time I connected through Heathrow, I had the same exact toiletry bag and they allowed me to fill up multiple bags with all of the same toiletries that I had on this day. But this time they gave me one tiny bag and I was required to only fill that one bag.”
Chloe said she had to quickly make a decision and keep her most valuable products.
Somehow she lost her glasses during the repack, which are valued at £173. She said: “I had to pick and choose which were most valuable to me and which I needed the most because unfortunately. My connections were pretty quick and I knew I was not going to have time to re-purchase any of the items.”
Things worsened for Chloe when she tried to take a video of the incident, but claims she was told she was a security threat and asked to delete the video.
She said: “I tried to take a quick video, considering I am a travel blogger, and when I did that a random employee came up behind me. I think he was in charge of overseeing and said that I was a threat to national security and force me to delete the video and then go to my deleted as well.
“I totally understand this but the way that he did it was very abrupt and it was pretty dramatic and scary considering I didn’t realize there was an issue was filming since there are no signs around saying do not film while getting your bag scanned.”
Although Chloe has vowed to never come back to the UK after her latest experience, she acknowledges that her reaction was over the top.
She said: “Please note this was recorded on zero sleep and is incredibly dramatic. I do take responsibility for this but It does not make it any less of an unfortunate situation.”
Under UK law, if you do take liquids in your hand luggage you must abide by the follow requirements:
- containers must hold no more than 100ml.
- containers must be in a single, transparent, resalable plastic bag, which holds no more than a litre and measures approximately 20cm x 20cm.
- contents must fit comfortably inside the bag so it can be sealed.
