Airport Security Launches Festive Crackdown on Wrapping Paper and Crackers

If you’re planning on jetting off for Christmas with a suitcase full of Ferrero Rochers, Auntie Pauline’s perfume and a pack of Tesco’s Finest Christmas crackers, Ronaldsway Airport has a message for you: calm down and pack properly.

The airport has issued its annual festive survival guide, reminding passengers that while we all know the classic rules, no giant bottles of Lynx Africa, no litre tubs of hair gel, some of us still try to sneak through a beautifully wrapped present.

Sadly, the scanners don’t care how neat your ribbon work is. Wrapped gifts? They might get unwrapped faster than your kids on Christmas morning.

The airport says if you want your presents to stay pretty, shove them in the checked luggage and do your wrapping at the other end.

And Christmas crackers? Absolutely not in your hand luggage. Sorry.

Straight into the checked baggage they go, still in their original packaging.

Perfume boxes, booze, anything liquidy, gooey, gloopy or suspiciously spreadable over 100ml? Same rule. Checked baggage or surrendered to the Security Grinch.

Chocolates, however, are fine,  which is excellent news for anyone whose emotional stability hinges on a Terry’s Chocolate Orange or Toblerone at 30,000 feet.

The airport is also advising travellers to turn up early, because queues at Christmas have the same energy as Strand Street on Christmas Eve: chaotic, fairly festive, but full of people CLEARLY regretting their life choices.

Oh, and the usual, take your coat off, get your digital gadgets ready, and avoid holding up the line with your tangled headphones.

Follow the rules and you’ll breeze through security with enough time left for a cold pint and a mince pie in the departure lounge (I really hope they do mince pies?!)