Special report Precision imaging
The new CT scanning technology allows security workers to zoom in on a bag’s contents and rotate the images for inspection. It first began to make headlines all the way back in 2017, in pre-pandemic times, when the scanners were trialled at London’s Heathrow Airport, among others. In 2019, Heathrow announced that it would invest £50m in a gradual roll-out of the technology with a deadline of 2022, though this would later be pushed back due to the effects of the pandemic. “We are slowly rolling them out,” said Heathrow CEO John-Holland Kaye to The Times in November, with regard to the CT security scanners. “We have just started the expansion of the security area in Terminal 3, which will have more CT scanners and have a deadline of mid-2024 from the [Department for Transport]. By then, the normal passenger experience will be that liquids stay in bags.” The technology has already been in use at US airports, such as Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson and Chicago’s O’Hare, along with Helsinki Airport and Amsterdam’s Schiphol in Europe, for a number of years. More recently, in October 2021, Shannon Airport in Ireland announced its own CT scanning security system, installed at a cost of €2.5m. “It is one of the projects Shannon Group took on during the period of severe travel restrictions on aviation,” Nandi O’Sullivan, the group’s head of communications, told CNN Travel in May. The scanning system was implemented during the Covid-19 pandemic, but only gained wider attention after international travel resumed. Donegal Airport in the north-west of Ireland has also moved to install this technology and dropped the 100ml rule. Similar to the CT scanners used in hospitals, these airport security scanners replace the previous 2D X-Ray scanning technology with more precise 3D imaging. “You can get a lot of information from a 2D image, but if you’ve got a 3D object in your hand you get a lot more information,” said Kevin Riordan, head of checkpoint solutions at Smiths Detection, which provided Shannon Airport’s CT scanning equipment, to CNN Travel. “From a security point of view, they’re able to make very accurate decisions about what the materials are in your bag: is it a likely threat material or is it benign. That’s better security, better decisions.” Upon implementing the technology, Shannon Airport estimated that the length of time passengers spent during the security screening process could be halved as a result of this move – to date, the airport reports that passenger feedback has been very positive. Similarly, in July 2020, it was announced that London Southend Airport would become the first in the UK to drop the practice of making passengers take their liquids and electronics out of their bags before going through security, due to the introduction of CT scanning in security lanes.
Future Airport /
www.futureairport.com
Amsterdam Schiphol had also been using CT technology at all its checkpoints since 2020, but unlike Southend, Shannon or Donegal, it’s a major international hub. The airport no longer requires passengers to adhere to the liquid restrictions, but advises them to continue using the 100ml containers all the same, in order to avoid potential issues when flying to airports that still maintain the limits.
The British art of queueing During Boris Johnson’s tenure as the UK’s prime minister, he made a pledge to push forward implementation of the scanning technology to speed up pre-boarding checks and improve security, giving UK airports a deadline of the end of 2022. However, after the Covid-19 pandemic – as with Heathrow’s internal plans to introduce CT technology across its operations – the initial deadline planned for the installations slipped, as the industry’s main concerns were very much fixed elsewhere. By November, however, The Times reported that government ministers had conducted a review into the implementation of CT scanning technology by 2024, with the hope that it could cut down queueing times for passengers. An announcement on the findings of this review is expected to take place before Christmas. Globally, passengers failing to remove items from their bags or travelling with large bottles of liquids and creams has historically been the single biggest cause of delays at airport security. After the chaotic scenes from the summer of 2022, which saw airport queues stretching out beyond the constraints of some buildings across the UK and Europe, the benefits of any measure to cut down queue times are clear to see.
In July 2022, Holland-Kaye told the LBC radio station that the long queues at the airport were caused by passengers “travelling with more than they normally would”, adding that people were also
Could the 100ml limit on liquids soon be a thing of the past at airport security?
100ml Metro 11
The maximum capacity limit for bottles and containers allowed through airport security, since November 2006.
Jaromir Chalabala/
Shutterstock.com
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