The Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) has taken a significant step to enhance security measures at airports by prohibiting commercial ad displays in security check areas. Instead, this space will solely focus on highlighting prohibited items that cannot be taken onboard aircraft in handbags or check-in baggage, according to the Times of India report. The underlying idea is to leverage passengers’ waiting time in queues before undergoing pre-embarkation security checks (PESC) to encourage them to voluntarily remove prohibited items from their cabin bags and avoid packing such items in check-in luggage in the future. This move comes in response to the alarming discovery that approximately 25,000 prohibited items are detected and removed from the bags of air travelers in India daily (combining both cabin and checked-in luggage). As a result, security personnel have been dedicating substantial time and energy to addressing this single issue.
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The Times of India report added that the number of frisked passengers stands at 4.8 lakhs taking 3,300 flights daily, and this number is on the rise. Detecting and removing a prohibited item takes an average of three minutes per bag. Thus, the 25,000 items amount to a staggering 75,000 minutes or 1,250 hours, which translates into 12 hours of security check time at airports being allocated to this issue, time that could be better used to tackle more critical threats, according to BCAS DG Zulfiquar Hasan.
According to the report, the most commonly detected prohibited items in cabin bags are lighters (26 per cent), scissors (22 per cent), knives (16 per cent), and liquids (14 per cent). On the other hand, for check-in bags, the top prohibited items include power banks (44 per cent), lighters (19 per cent), loose batteries (18 per cent), and laptops (11 per cent).
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BCAS and CISF are committed to providing foolproof security without causing significant delays for passengers. The DG is optimistic that there will be no recurrence of the massive congestion witnessed in some major airports like Delhi, Mumbai, and Bengaluru last year. The congestion then was attributed to the security check areas handling more passengers than their capacity allowed. Additionally, the requirement of more trays per passenger during winter time, to store jackets, compounded the issue. Since then, several airports have created additional security check lines to alleviate such problems. For example, Delhi T3 had 13 lines and now has 25, and this proactive approach aims to prevent a repeat of the previous year’s issues during the upcoming winter season.
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BCAS has mandated that airports handling over 50 lakh passengers annually must install 3D computed tomography X-ray (CTX) machines for cabin bag checks by December 31, 2023 to further bolster security. These advanced machines eliminate the need for passengers to separate personal electronic devices (PEDs), chargers, and liquids into separate trays, which is currently required with the current generation 2D X-ray scanners.
