While heading back to the UK from Japan on Friday 28th September, I wanted to buy a bunch of last minute gifts for people here in the UK. One of the reasons for this was that I could then take them as carry-on instead of adding them to hold luggage where they’d be pushed to fit in my incredibly overweight bags (got heavily stung for excess baggage)
and would be prone to destruction by baggage handling trolls.

Anyway, I found some mochi (little cakey things) which were nice for  presents and I was wondering about getting some sake for someone, then I spotted a pack of two sampler bottles of Japanese whisky (or is that whiskey?). These had two 180ml bottles in each pack so I could buy two for different people. So, I picked them up and went to the checkout. After some messing around the girlat the checkout found the sheet of paper explaining that if I had a connecting flight, that I might have a problem with getting the liquid onto the next plane and that if I got my luggage at the transfer I should consider putting the bottles in then. Now, from flying out via Copenhagen (I had miles and could get an upgrade both ways on the long part of the trip even if it was longer overall) I remembered that you get off a plane and then immediately go through security again. So, taking the better part of valour, I declined to buy the whisky. As Jim Briggs says, though, this is all part of the War on Tourism. Here I am, flying in on a 10.5 hour flight from Tokyo and I can’t get straight on to a plane from Copenhagen. What a ridiculous operation, when they impose restrictions on carry-on that allow duty free at origin, but not at transfers. They really need to find a way around this. In airports with security at the gate, they have duty free systems which deliver your purchases to the aircraft. Surely there should be a way to do this when transferring as well.