However, the current commercial practice for the transport of bananas from Central America to Europe by Dole and other shippers(G. De Martino, Dole Italy, pers. comm.) is to pack fruit in modified atmosphere (MA) bags but to still use refrigeration. The low oxygen and high carbon dioxide atmosphere generated in such bags is well known to reduce the sensitivity of fruit to ethylene (Liu,1976), hence a much higher ethylene level will be tolerated before ripening is induced. The use of potassium permanganate impregnated pellets to absorb ethylene in conjunction with MA bags was shown many years ago by Scott and Gandanegara (1974) to result in Australian bananas taking 2 8 days before ripening when stored at 30◦C and 38 days when stored at 25◦C. Maintaining appropriate oxygen and carbon dioxide atmospheres inside bags during storage in an fluctuating temperature regime would need to be assessed but Scott et al. (1970) reported a wide range of atmospheres was tolerated by bananas at ambient temperatures. It would therefore seem quite feasible for sealed bag transport with ethylene absorption from the Central America to Europe to be conducted without refrigeration.