Can You Take Frozen Liquids through Airport Security?

• By Matt Holden
• Sep 10, 2015

The airport makes it quite clear that you can’t take liquids through security and onto a plane for fear of terrorism, but what about liquids that aren’t in the liquid state? Simon Perry asked himself that question before getting on a California-bound plane from Heathrow this week.

“After going through security we were talking about the monopoly that the shops have in the airport for selling drinks and it just occurred to me that only liquids were banned, a frozen drink isn’t a liquid,” said Simon.

Simon decided to try and bring a frozen Diet Coke through security, purely out of curiosity. In order to keep it frozen, he packed the drink in ice and then dumped the ice in the airport bathroom before getting in line.

In an interview with Gizmodo, Simon said:

“I was planning on just leaving it in the bag. They ban liquids so no need to declare it”, Simon said, “However, on putting my bag on the security conveyor I was asked ‘any liquids, any drinks?’ so I had to declare it of course. I said something like ‘no liquids, but a drink in solid form’, which seemed to confuse [the security person] and he asked me what I was talking about. I showed him the frozen drink.”

According to the report, the airport said that the government did not classify the frozen drink as a solid, and therefore it must be treated as a liquid. He gave up the fight shortly after.