September 17, 2006
Travel woes 1: Ryanair in cohoots with Boots the chemist?
Well, perhaps not, but the thought struck my mind when I was at Stansted on the way to Glasgow last week.
The bored girl at check-in didn’t bother telling me that no cosmetics could be taken on to flights, she just ran through the standard warning about sharp objects. Consequently, I had to spend 15 minutes watching a very polite airport security chap going through my backpack, removing all of the lotions and ointments, etc. that I’d picked out at Boots the day before. Apparently, everything is destroyed even when (like several items of mine) they had not been opened.
“You can replace all of this in Boots once you’ve gone through passport control,” said the nice security fellow helpfully.
Indeed, Boots the Chemist is barely ten metres away from where I stood watching him dumping my toothpaste, antiseptic spray, deep heat lotion, etc (I was going walking and had quite a few cosmetic products). £32.50 of unnecessary spend later I’d restocked everything. Well, almost.
The one thing I couldn’t replace was the stick of MyggA that I’d bought in Sweden the previous week (I made a special detour to a chemists while returning to Arlanda airport).
MyggA is an incredibly effective anti-mosquito product (virtually 100% effective according to tests carried out in Sweden) that is NOT, repeat NOT for sale in Boots! As a result, I got attacked by Scottish midges at the base of Ben Nevis.
OK, I don’t suppose Ryanair is working with Boots, but the pharmacy chain appears to be doing a roaring trade at UK’s airports. It just goes to show that one man’s meat is another man’s poison…
Post Script: I nearly forgot to mention that the previous week I flew to Stockholm and back. Not once was my hand luggage questioned and on the flight home (via Copenhagen) I was carrying the same backpack with the same washbag that was emptied in Stansted five days later.
Posted by dompannell at September 17, 2006 2:58 PM | TrackBack