Delivering a customer-focused experience with high levels of security.
What is one of the biggest challenges facing airports today? Monty Lutzker, Morpho Detection’s Vice President of Sales and Marketing, discusses how his teams are helping European airports meet the challenge for high levels of security performance without slowing operations down.
“Standard 3 EDS offers higher throughput, better image quality, and much greater detection performance,” explains Monty Lutzker, Morpho Detection’s Vice President of Sales and Marketing.
“It’s an ongoing process. We continually analyse where the threats are coming from and how they’re evolving,” explains Lutzker. “We then collaborate with regulators and our airport partners to deliver solutions designed to meet current and future threats, all while maintaining operational efficiencies.”
It’s this type of collaboration and support that airports throughout the UK have relied on as they’ve started transitioning to Standard 3-approved explosive detection systems (EDS). Many airports are concerned about the upcoming deadlines requiring all hold baggage screening equipment in Europe to be Standard 3 EDS by 2018 in the UK and 2020 for most airports. Lutzker advises customers to prepare well ahead of schedule to ensure compliance and improved detection without negatively impacting operations.
Timing, according to Lutzker, is of the essence. “Many airports still think they have plenty of time, when in reality, airports with more complex ecosystems are taking about four years to transition, and smaller airports usually need to go offline during the off-peak winter months. All these factors make the deadlines a lot closer than expected.”
Why is this such a big endeavour? With Standard 2, the first level of screening was handled by an X-ray machine. Now, the more advanced and powerful Standard 3 EDS machines, typically containing Computed Tomography (CT), will operate at Level 1. This puts security detection at the center of operations within the baggage handling system (BHS), requiring airports to redesign and reconfigure their entire operations.
“The first major decision point in the process is selecting your EDS supplier,” Lutzker points out. “This allows us to work with all the stakeholders and selected BHS partners to figure out the best way to integrate these systems into your airport’s infrastructure. At Morpho Detection, we’ve been integrating EDS equipment with BHS partners for more than fifteen years and have experience with all the BHS providers.”
Certain elements are crucial: Early engagement in the process. Listening. Collaborating. Dealing with the unique needs of smaller spaces to the complexity of large airport environments. These strategies have given Lutzker’s teams the expertise to carry out efficient implementations and provide customers the highest levels of support.
“Customers trust us. They know we have the experience to advise on what will and will not work in their environments. We design and build our scanners, and our teams have proven track records of service excellence,” concludes Lutzker. “From the first interaction throughout every step of the process, we’re helping customers make the right decisions so they can start getting all the operational and detection benefits a Standard 3 EDS solution delivers.”
For more information on Morpho Detection’s Standard 3-approved EDS technology and solution offerings, visit morphodetection.com.
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