Security

Security

Personal baggage is considered as a risk with airline carriers – particularly unaccompanied baggage. Mostly it concerns items you don’t consider a danger but can be highly dangerous at 10 kilometers high in the air.

Besides, security also needs to be ensured with regards to possible terrorist attacks. All unaccompanied baggage is therefore thoroughly checked either by hand or by scanner. WBS also checks the identification of the passenger and keeps a copy of their identification and/or the airline ticket.

Please find the official regulations with regards to airfreight and possible dangerous items below:

 

Are you carrying dangerous goods in your baggage?

A mercury thermometer, a can of hairspray, firelighter cubes for starting a barbeque, a laptop computer, mosquito spray, a cigarette lighter. All ordinary household products, but all these items can form a major hazard in an airplane. Many travellers are wholly unaware of the danger. This page explains which substances and products pose a hazard on board airplanes and what you yourself can do to increase safety in the air.

 

Why can ordinary products be so dangerous?

Fireworks, cylinders of camping gas and bottles of paraffin are well known for the hazard they present. But many travellers don’t stop to think that normal, ordinary household products can also be dangerous in an airplane. A little gas always escapes from aerosol spray cans. Large numbers of spray cans in the sealed baggage hold of an airplane can therefore lead to the danger of explosion. The glass of a mercury thermometer can break. The released mercury can corrode the aluminium of the plane. An underwater torch or a diving lamp may accidentally be switched on. Such lamps become extremely hot, leading to a fire on the plane. The list of ordinary products posing a hazard in air travel goes on and on.

 

How can you tell whether it’s dangerous or not?

Some hazardous substances can be recognized by a warning sign on the packaging. A label bearing a flame indicates that the substance is flammable, a cross or a skull indicates that it is poisonous. A sign bearing a hand and a test tube means that the substance is corrosive. Not all dangerous goods are as easy to recognize. Mercury thermometers, for example, carry no warning sign. So please read this page with care.

 

What should you never carry in your baggage?

Some products and substances should never be carried in either your carry-on baggage or your suitcase. These are:

• Flammables, such as paint, white spirits, paraffin, and fire-lighter cubes for starting charcoal fires (barbecues);
• Explosives, such as fireworks;
• Corrosives, including cleaning products, chemical unblocking agents, ammonia and batteries filled with battery acid;
• Poisons, such as mouse or rat poison, insecticide and cockroach spray;
• Pressurized containers: cylinders of camping gas, filled oxygen cylinders for diving, but also fire extinguishers.

If you need to take such products anyway, your airline is required to treat these as dangerous cargo. This involves packaging and labeling the goods in a special manner, as well as ensuring that all the required documents are in order and duly available. These provide the information the airline needs to take the appropriate safety measures.

 

What is permitted and what is not?

You are permitted to take along the following only with permission from the airline:

• An underwater torch or diving lamp;
• A small gaseous oxygen or air cylinder required for medical use;
• A battery-powered wheelchair;
• Ammunition for sporting purposes (if securely boxed in quantities not exceeding 5 kg gross weight);
• A life-jacket with gas carbon dioxide cylinders;
• Dry ice.

You are not permitted to carry the following in your carry-on baggage or suitcase:

• Cigarette lighters or safety matches;
• Samples of dangerous goods which sales representatives might be carrying;
• A lithium battery and equipment run on lithium batteries, such as photo cameras, video cameras and laptop computers. (Some lithium batteries are exempt from this prohibition; the manufacturer or importer of your equipment can inform you);
• Cleaning products.

The table at the bottom of this page offers an overview of the items and products you are and are not permitted to carry on board in either your carry-on baggage or suitcase. Any product or item that could possibly be regarded as dangerous that does not occur in the table below is not permitted on board the plane in either your carry-on baggage or suitcase.

 

What if your baggage is being sent later?

If your personal belongings are to be shipped later, no potentially dangerous goods are allowed, i.e. no perfume, after shave etc. If such products are included among your baggage, please notify the airline to report these as dangerous cargo.

 

Unsure? Questions?

If you’re not sure whether or not a particular product or item is allowed, or you have any other questions, please contact the Transport Information Centre at the State Traffic Inspectorate, on +31 (0)88 489 0000 during office hours. Outside office hours only in cases of emergency.