2023-07-31 08:02:26
Long queues should be a thing of the past, as should the unpacking of computers and liquids at airport security checks, and the restriction on taking containers with a maximum of 100 milliliters of liquid with you, which excludes any drink, should also be dropped. Here’s how the travel industry is charting the future of air travel.
But passengers still need patience. According to information from the FAZ from industry circles, only 27 new scanners with computer tomography (CT) technology should be in use at local airports at the end of July at the peak of the summer travel season – some in test operation because staff still have to be trained to evaluate the more detailed CT scan images .
Great Britain has set itself the goal of completely converting hand luggage checks to CT technology by 2024. Germany would have a mammoth task ahead of it for something similar, nationwide there is a three-digit number of control lanes. But after little had happened due to long-standing national certifications for devices that were already in use abroad, there is now movement. By the end of the year, the number of CT machines at the passenger and hand luggage controls is expected to double. When asked by the FAZ, the Federal Ministry of the Interior confirmed that the Federal Police had ordered 24 CT scanners.
Most devices are in Frankfurt and Munich
So far, travelers have almost only been able to experience the new technology at the two largest airports. There are 15 CT scanners in Frankfurt and eight in Munich. Individual devices have arrived in Nuremberg, Cologne, Stuttgart and Berlin. The capital’s airport is “currently technically equipped,” said a spokesman for the federal police. And he names other places: “In the current year 2023, the initial equipment or the increase in the number of CT baggage inspection systems at the airports in Düsseldorf, Berlin-Brandenburg, Hamburg and Stuttgart is planned.”
In addition, there are likely to be new devices in Frankfurt and Munich, where the federal police and the procurement office of the Federal Ministry of the Interior are not directly involved in the conversion. The Southern Bavaria Air Authority, an authority of the Upper Bavarian government district, has always been responsible for Munich. In Frankfurt, the airport operator Fraport has taken over control of the controls.
Despite the new pace, a complete German conversion will not succeed in 2024. The equipment of the other airports, where the federal police carry out the necessary tasks, is planned “perspectively”, according to the federal police. In Frankfurt, Fraport has announced that it will have 40 CT scanners in operation by next summer – but there are around 170 control lanes there.
Munich wants to be ready in 2025
For Munich Airport, the southern Bavarian air authority has declared that the airport will be “the first airport in Germany to be almost completely equipped with the new security technology and the comfortable control lanes”. But that is not likely to be achieved until 2025. Meanwhile, the federal government wants to modernize the security controls in a “technology-neutral” manner. “Currently, CT technology offers the greatest potential for development. Other technologies such as X-ray diffraction are under development,” said a spokesman for the Federal Ministry of the Interior.
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