Was in KL International the other week waiting for a flight to ABZ via AMS so passed some time in the duty free shop, where a bottle or two of Gordon's finest ended up in my shopping basket.
Came to the checkout and the lovely Malaysian girl (they're all lovely) asked if AMS was my final destination. "No" says I. "Then you can't have them" says she.
WTF, I thought, you can stick your Gordon's and I'll keep my remaining ringgits for next time. This can't be right? Similar flight this time last year my litre of juniper juice from Singapore in its clear sealed bag, complete with visible receipt, walked through LHR from terminal 4 to 1 to catch the ABZ flight. Must be the f---ng Cloggies in AMS I thought.
In AMS I picked up a duty free brochure to convince Mrs C-dog that my ranting was justified, but there it was, last paragraph on the back page. [B]NO DUTY FREE BOTTLES CAN BE TRANSFERRED BETWEEN FLIGHTS WITHIN THE EU!
As ABZ and many other airports in the UK and the EU for that matter don't have the luxury of intercontinental flights this means effectively we have seen the last of duty free as we know it if you use the regionals.
This is blatant discrimination favouring those who live close to the likes of AMS or LHR (mind you they need all the encouragement they can get to stay there) but what are us poor people in the sticks going to do now?
Check your baggage to the gateway airport, claim baggage, put Gordons in baggage, check self and baggage in for domestic flight - err, no thanks, probably easier to take the case (no pun intended) to the European Court of Human Rights.
Of course the answer is to buy your duty frees on arrival and I understand there are some facilities for doing this. However that would hammer the profits of the existing duty free shops, probly to the extent of BAA having to double the 20% increase they have been given approval to charge airlines.
OK, rant over!
