Security personnel at airports identify nearly 25,000 prohibited items brought by air travellers daily, among which lighters in handbags and power banks in check-in bags are the most commonly discovered objects, said Director-General of Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS), Zulfiquar Hasan.
The top officer was lamenting the lack of awareness among passengers on rules governing security during air travel, and said that airports have now been ordered to remove commercial advertisements from the security frisking area inside passenger terminal buildings and told to instead display information about security protocols to be followed by air travellers.
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“Everyday 8 lakh handbags and 5 lakh check-in bags are screened across Indian airports, and 25,000 prohibited items are discovered. These include lighters which constitute 26% of prohibited items discovered in handbags, followed by scissors (22%), knives (16%), liquids (14%). In check-in bags, the most commonly identified prohibited items are power banks (44%), followed by lighters (19%), used batteries (18%) and laptops (11%),” said the D-G during a press interaction on the launch of Aviation Security Culture Week on Monday.
The senior officer said that each banned item resulted in an average diversion for security personnel of three minutes, amounting to a total loss of 75,000 minutes or 1,250 hours per day, which can be further translated into 12 hours per day per airport assuming nearly 100 airports in the country.
Mr. Hasan said that this time could be better utilised towards graver threats if there is adequate awareness among air travellers.
