Bengaluru’s Kempegowda International Airport is the third busiest in India and handles over 31 million passengers every year. It was also one of the first three airports in India to start with the DigiYatra facility, allowing passengers to skip long security lines at the entrance.
In a new relief for passengers, Bengaluru is set to become the first airport in India that will not require passengers to remove their gadgets and personal belongings in trays during security checks. The airport will now start using new CTX machines and full body scanners which will allow passengers to seamlessly pass security checkpoints.
Bengaluru Airport to Deploy Advanced CTX Machines for Security Checks
Bengaluru Airport has announced that it will start the trial testing of new CTX machines at its T2 terminal. Once these machines are active, passengers will not be required to remove their smartphones, laptops, and other personal belongings in trays while clearing the security checks.
In an interview with Moneycontrol, Satyaki Raghunath, Chief Operating Officer of Bengaluru International Airport Limited, said that the airport will commence the use of new CTX machines in the next few weeks. For now, the facility will only be available at terminal T2 for domestic passengers.
The Bengaluru Airport will be the first in India to implement this facility. For reference, CTX stands for Computer Tomography X-Ray which scans electronic devices directly through bags. At present, airports in India still use older regular scanners that require passengers to remove gadgets separately for security scanning.
Bengaluru airport will also use full-body scanners, meaning that the security officer will not physically inspect passengers. Instead, passengers will be asked to go through a full-body scanner which will scan for potential threats, without touching the passenger.
However, passengers may still be required to remove their wallets, watches, keys, and other wearables separately. It is unclear whether the full-body scanner will allow passengers to skip removing these wearables or not.
The implementation of new CTX machines is expected to speed up the security checks at airports. When paired with DigiYatra, the time taken by passengers from entering the airport to reaching their flight gate is expected to come down as low as 15 minutes.
Other airports in India are also expected to deploy these new CTX machines. However, we are yet to hear about the upgrade in security machines from airports other than Bengaluru. Considering that security checks are more strict for international travel, CTX machines are expected to arrive at domestic airports first.
Government Wants More Indians To Fly
The Indian Government recently launched a scheme called UDAN which stands for Ude Desh ka Aam Nagrik, which translates to ‘every common man in India should fly’. Under this scheme, GoI will subsidize certain flying routes, that mainly connect smaller cities with bigger ones.
Over 463 new flight routes have been introduced under the UDAN scheme, which has increased the flight connectivity of 74 airports across India with major cities such as Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Mumbai, etc. The GoI recently upgraded this scheme to add over 1000 new routes. As per records, over 60 lakh passengers have benefitted from the UDAN scheme so far.
Nipun Aggarwal, Chief Commercial and Transportation Officer of Air India, recently said that the Indian aviation sector is growing at an average of 10% each year. This market is expected to grow further and India will be one of the largest flying regions in the world.
Air India has also placed one of the largest orders in aviation history. The airline has ordered over 470 aircraft from Boeing and Airbus which will be delivered over the next few years. It is clear that the Tata Group too believes in the growth of the aviation sector in India.
