£36 million new London Gatwick Airport security area opens to cut passenger screening time
A new state-of-the-art security area has fully opened at Gatwick Airport to speed-up the screening process and halve passenger time spent going through security.
The £36 million area with electronic-gates opened today to "maintain the strictest security measures" at Gatwick while screening up to 5,000 passengers per hour. The project is part of the transformation of the North Terminal.
Phase one of the project was completed in February this year, with five new security lanes opened, and the final phase is now complete as a further five lanes are open for passengers to use.
Each lane has seven 'loading points', reducing queue times and increasing the number of passengers able to prepare their belongings for the screening process at any one time. There are also dedicated lanes for premium travellers, families and passengers with reduced mobility
On entrance to the security area, passengers will now pass through a set of 17 new 'e-gates', which will also help to reduce the build-up of queues and speed up the process of passing through security. Passengers scan their boarding pass and the gates will automatically open.
Peter Lederer, head of security at Gatwick, said: "This state-of-the-art facility is the culmination of several years of planning and development and provides us with some of the most sophisticated airport security measures in the world. Direct feedback from both security staff and passengers was taken on board when designing the technology to ensure it provides the safest and most efficient experience possible.
"This facility will ensure we are able to screen 95 per cent of our passengers through security within five minutes."
Source: Crawley News
