Manchester Airport hand luggage plea as blow torches and saws found

Airport staff have urged travellers to remind themselves of hand luggage rules

Blow torches, hacksaws, toy guns and a litre bottle of vodka were among items confiscated from hand luggage at Manchester Airport in just one morning, bosses have revealed.

Holidaymakers have been urged to follow the rules after about 400 banned items were seized.

It comes after delays to plans for new scanners at major UK airports allowing the 100ml liquid limit to be lifted.

The government had set a 1 June deadline for the roll-out.

But that has now been extended after airports including London Gatwick, Heathrow and Manchester were expected to miss the target.

Graham Matthews, head of terminal security at Manchester, said the new CT scanners were currently being installed, and will allow passengers to leave large electrical items in their bags and bring through full-size containers of liquid.

He said some may be operational by summer, but rules on what can be permitted as hand luggage will remain the same until all the new machines are up and running.

Hundreds of items were confiscated in one morning at Manchester Airport

The haul of recent banned items included hundreds of lighters, packs of darts, hammers, and a spud gun as travel picked up around the Easter holidays.

"The variety of items we seized in just a couple of hours shows what we deal with every day," Mr Matthews said.

"Each time we have to pull a bag aside for a manual search it takes several minutes and every search adds up and can slow down the whole security process."

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