On this day, Upper Bavaria’s district president Konrad Schober is clearly the bad boy compared to Bavaria’s transport minister Christian Bernreiter (CSU): During the demonstration of the new security checks, the security people discover a 3D-printed pistol on him. Minister Bernreiter, on the other hand, only has a harmless trumpet in his hand luggage, who knows how such a plastic gun would be interpreted in the state election campaign.
Both can be seen on the screens, even for non-professionals. Of course, the day-to-day work of the security guards is much more demanding. Bernreiter officially opened three new control lanes in Terminal 1 together with airport manager Jost Lammers on Wednesday. With these, passengers no longer have to laboriously empty their bags or backpacks, meaning laptops and liquids can also remain in hand luggage. With the help of technology, the contents of a bag can be identified very precisely.
For liquids, the regulation still applies that they have to be sent through the control in their own transparent bags and that each individual container can hold a maximum of 100 milliliters. The plastic bag must not hold more than one liter.
This should be completely over in Munich by 2026 at the latest, when all control systems have been converted to the new technology. The uses computer tomography (CT) to scan the contents of the bag from all sides and creates a three-dimensional image from hundreds of individual images. The highlight: liquids can be identified based on their density. The employees of the state security company at Munich Airport (SGM) can therefore distinguish between wheat beer (allowed) and denatured alcohol (prohibited).
The technology has been tested in Terminal 2 since 2019. Three new systems are now in operation in Terminal 1 and two new systems in Terminal 2. Because up to four passengers can place their hand luggage on the belt at the same time, everything should go much faster. Up to 520 passengers per hour can be handled in this way, previously it was around 325. Or as Uwe Büchner, the head of the department responsible for flight safety in the Bavarian Ministry of Transport, calculates: “The hull factor per passenger is reduced from 2.3 to 1.2. “
Bavaria’s Transport Minister Christian Bernreiter (centre) presents the new control lanes together with Airport Manager Jost Lammers (left) and District President Konrad Schober (right).
(Photo: Marco Einfeldt)
SGM employees sit behind a paneled pane and analyze the contents of the bags. If they find something suspicious, the carry-on baggage will be diverted to a separate baggage lane, which is separated from the passenger by a glass pane to prevent possible access. Then an employee comes and puts the luggage on a scanner again and it has to be opened. If there are no complaints, the passenger takes his things as usual, the empty tub then disappears into a shaft, is then automatically driven back to the beginning of the control lane and disinfected with UV light – a lesson from Corona, as Büchner explains .
A total of 48 control lanes and 60 CT devices are to be in use in both terminals by the start of the summer holidays in 2026. Then in Munich there is also a limit on the liquids you can bring with you.
During the election campaign year, CSU Minister Bernreiter is of course happy to point out that the Free State is donating 45 million euros for the new security technology, which is also to be used in the other Bavarian airports in the future. Nuremberg is also to be completely converted by 2026, and the first device has been in use since February. In Memmingen, the CT scanners will be installed in the next structural expansion.
Munich’s Terminal 2 is to be completely converted by 2024, so passengers will no longer have to worry about the sunscreen, hair gel or sparkling wine they have brought with them.