An inline baggage system from Germany will be fixed in the Chennai International Terminal shortly. Minister of State for Civil Aviation K.C. Venugopal had announced that the new terminal will be commissioned within the month. Mr. Venugopal had visited the city airport last week to inspect its facilities.
Speaking about the new machine, Airport Director H.S. Suresh said, ‘The machine had originally been procured for Srinagar airport. As a different security system is in place there, it was decided to install the machine in Chennai… The machine can check 22 bags per minute and its peak capacity would be 1,200 to 1,800 pieces of baggage per hour. Two inline baggage systems are already functioning in the existing international departure area.
The German-made machine will screen baggage at four levels. At the first level, screening is done by a high-speed multi-view computer sliced X-ray machine. At this stage, the role of the operator will be to only start or shut down the machine. Sixty per cent of the baggage will be cleared at the first level itself. Forty per cent of the baggage will move to the second level, where images from the first level will be transferred to a work station. Here, an operator will diagnose the screened image. If the operator is unable to check the image within the stipulated 20 seconds, the images will be sent to another work station for a more detailed analysis… 98 per cent of the baggage will get cleared at the second level itself. Baggage rejected at that level will be then screened for explosives or examined by a sniffer dog. At the fourth level, any baggage that gives cause for suspicion will be examined in the presence of the owner.