Can you take wine on the plane from Lanzarote

The bottle does not go through cabin security. It flies in your hold luggage, where the spirits limit does not apply, and up to 4 litres travel tax free to mainland Spain and the Balearic Islands.

Wine does not fly under a single rule. It flies under three: the liquids rule for the cabin, the dangerous goods rules and customs. The first is the one that keeps the bottle away from your seat. The other two are more generous than people fear, and they are where the plan of bringing wine back from the island is decided.

In the cabin, the 100 ml rule

Liquids travelling in the cabin go in containers of up to 100 ml, inside a single clear, resealable plastic bag of 1 litre, presented separately at security. AENA and AESA set this, and it is not an airline rule: it is European law. The bag does not stretch to a 75 cl bottle. Not in the cabin.

The exception is duty free. What you buy at the airport or on board goes up to the cabin in its sealed bag with the red rim, receipt inside, and is not opened until your destination. You buy it after security, the filter has already been passed, and that is why it flies sealed. On connecting flights, the sealed bag can be inspected at the stopover.

The European rule is still the 100 ml one. Some Spanish airports already have the new scanners that relax it, but the roll-out advances unevenly: what happens in one terminal says nothing about Lanzarote. What counts is what AENA or the airline say, and you check it on the day you fly.

In the hold bag, no spirits limit

In the hold bag the wine plays by different rules. The liquid restrictions do not apply to it, says AENA, and in the IATA dangerous goods rules, which govern what travels in the hold of the plane, it gets a better deal than spirits: it falls into the category of alcoholic drinks below 24 % alcohol, and therefore outside the 5-litre limit set for spirits from 24 to 70 %.

The real limit is the hold luggage weight your fare allows. And weight counts: six bottles weigh about five kilos.

The bottle also asks for its place: wrapped, in the middle, among clothes. There is no official packing rule, so what governs here is not a regulation but the logic of luggage: the middle, where a knock has to fight through clothes to arrive. If your bag falls short, the charge for checking an extra one varies by airline and fare, and you look it up when you book.

At customs, 4 litres tax free

The airport is not the end of the story. Back in mainland Spain or the Balearic Islands, the traveller allowance of the Agencia Tributaria, the Spanish tax agency, lets 4 litres of still wine per person through without tax, which is five 75 cl bottles. Towards other destinations, and for anything above the allowance, the sums move to a different chapter, and that chapter has its own page in the guide: how much wine you can bring back from the Canaries.

The sums, at a glance

If the bottle is the souvenir

The paperwork leaves the plan clear. The souvenir bottle flies in the hold, with the weight counted before you leave home. The one you want to drink during the trip can only come on board from duty free, sealed, though on a stopover the bag can end up open. In the end, the limits that matter are not at Lanzarote airport: they are in the baggage allowance you booked and in the allowance at your arrival, two lines you check before filling the box at the winery.

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