New Delhi: Following reports of unprecedented delays at airports such as the recent one at Delhi’s IGI Airport, the government may soon introduce new baggage scanners that produce three-dimensional images of the contents at the country’s airports, enabling security personnel to better analyse what is inside the baggage without requiring passengers to remove electronic devices.
“Our aim is to clear the passengers faster and with better security equipment,“ said a Union civil aviation ministry official, adding that the notification for the new baggage scanners will be issued within a month, Hindustan Times reported.
The new machines will be first installed in all major airports such as Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad. Once the notification is issued, airport operators are expected to install them within a year. Such machines are widely used at many airports in the United States and Europe, and do not require passengers to remove their laptops, chargers, or jackets from the cabin baggage. These will make the airport experience smoother for flyers and increase the airport’s capacity to handle more passengers and flights, the official was quoted as saying.
According to Aviation ministry officials, the machines, which produce high-resolution 3D images enable security officers to make a more accurate assessment of a bag’s contents, will increase the number of cabin baggage that can be scanned and lead to shorter queues.
Delhi’s T3 was handling 21 departures in an hour, a second official said.
“A scanner can handle a maximum of 15 flights in an hour but handling 21 flights in an hour is not doable. According to our study, the automated tray retrieval system (ATRS) can handle a maximum of 270 bags in an hour but the increase in the number of flights during the morning and evening peak hours has been leading to excessive burden on the scanning personnel leading to long queues,” an official was quoted as saying.
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