Single security check to become part of Terminal 4 travel experience

NEW TERMINAL 4 TO FEATURE ONE SINGLE SECURITY CHECK

The Kenya Airport Authority has just announced that they will introduce a single point security check for the new Terminal 4, which is presently under construction. Once cleared the KAA statement pointed out passengers will then no longer require the added level of gate security prior to boarding their respective flights.

Presently passengers are screened at entry point into the terminals before they can proceed to check in counters, and need to remove shoes, belts and all. After check in and clearing immigration, a second check point, often within minutes of the first, requires the same procedure again, often upsetting passengers who question the why, only to be told to shut up or face the consequences.

The new procedure in Terminal 1, now expected to become operational in early 2014 according to the latest forecasts, will be a welcome feature therefore, removing the duplication of the screening processes and yet serving the need for secure air side operations.

Right now we go through that process whenever we have to work on a check in. Passengers go through the two checks and may be annoyed and ask why, but for us staff we go through it so many times. Every time it is shoes and belts and phones and purses and all as if we get armed and dangerous between handling two flights. For us it is daily trouble and we hope that in Terminal 4 that will all end. Once entry point screening and that is it. It is good for our passengers but for us too. Maybe they can introduce that here too when they have opened 4 and the main terminal 1, 2 and 3 are overhauled’ said a regular aviation source from Nairobi.

Such single point screening has been successfully in place in such airports like Dubai International, or Brussels, proving that it is possible except in places where paranoia prevails and duplication or triplication is the order of the day, as if security does not trust itself to do the job properly. Added the source: ‘I remember the piece you wrote from an inaugural to Abuja. If I remember you had to go through 7 different check points including currency forms and that is just not in order. It makes a mockery of convenient air travel and gives everything surrounding flying a bad image. I laughed at the time, thinking me in Nairobi got it easy compared to those chaps in Abuja’.

Monitor this space for updates on how the new Terminal 4 is progressing and how security checks and all will be handled when the new facility finally opens – in other words if KAA can live up to the promise now made or if job creation through multiplication will continue.