For those of you who hate removing laptops from bags, your bag of precious liquids and gels and anything else that will make an airport security agent unhappy, there’s good news at London City Airport, who are promising to have their CT-style scanners up and running before the Easter break.
London City Airport already has 2 new generation CT security scanning lanes in operation. From mid-March, a third will be added, and the last old-generation machine taken out of service.
The final new generation lane will be added at the end of March, meaning anyone flying through the airport in the run-up to Easter will be able to keep laptops and liquids up to 2 litres inside their bag.
The move comes with continued passenger growth at the airport, with 217,000 passengers in January and 225,000 in February, with routes to Amsterdam, Edinburgh and Zurich being the three busiest.
The airport is expecting new routes to spin up too, with British Airways operating to Nice from the 14th of March and Jersey from the 20th of April.
In Quotes
London City Airport’s CEO, Robert Sinclair, said:
“London City is continuing to move in the right direction. The start of the year has been in line with expectations, but we will see a step change from the Easter period onwards and we will be geared up to serve close to 2019 levels of passengers in periods through the summer.
And the good news for anyone planning a holiday or a business trip is that we will be the first mainstream UK airport to offer a fully CT security experience from the end of this month. The new lanes will not only cut hassle, but also cut queuing times, which I know passengers will love.”
Not taking items out of bags… wonderful.
I’ve used CT scanning-based luggage scanners a few times now (most in Helsinki and Geneva) and it makes the passenger experience a lot smoother, as there is no need to unpack a bag, get the key items out, and then spend time re-packing as people wait behind you.
It removes a lot of travel friction and headaches of security – be it over a bottle of hand sanitiser that’s 25ml over or forgetting you packed a tablet computer.
And yes, bags still get pulled over for manual inspection – which is to be expected if something isn’t clear on a scanner.
As more airports gain the technology (with it being mandated it is installed by 2024), passengers will get used to these changes.
Just remember on the return journey, you must comply with local rules and regulations. As the rollout of the CT-style scanners is going slowly, you are going to have to be aware of what you can bring and what you have to unpack at each airport for a long time to come.
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