Lenghty airport security checks? Not any more

In order to enhance passenger comfort, the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) has decided to cut security checks and frisking time at the airports to almost half of the present time taken.

The force has prepared a four-point new standard operating procedure for its security personnel who are deployed at the country's 59 civil airports to frisk and identify genuine travelling passengers and scan suspect baggage.

"We have decided to cut the security check time for air fliers at airports by half. At present, our officials take 7-8 minutes to complete the frisking and identification of passengers but now we plan to cut it down by half to about 4 minutes," Chief of CISF airport security unit O P Singh told PTI.

Singh said new modules and SOPs have been developed to enable the CISF security men achieve this target.

"We have initiated a new profiling mechanism by which the security person intelligently identifies between a genuine and a fake or suspect passenger. Once that is done, the security personnel are being trained to quickly go through three details in the air ticket which is checking the correct flight number, date, time and the valid I-card of the passenger," Additional Director General (CISF) Singh said.

Authorities of the force are particularly driven to undertake such measures after a latest survey they conducted among passengers at Indian airports found out that extended waiting time for security checks was troubling maximum number of air fliers in the country.

Singh said the new security protocols have been put to test at the domestic and international terminals of the Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) here with success and from the coming week, the new training module will be imparted to all force personnel who are deployed under its airport security wing across the country.

"We just request the air passengers to keep a valid air ticket in hand or in case of a soft copy they should show the original 'pdf' attachment on their smart phone to the CISF official. We will ensure that they are cleared for their flight in as less time as possible," Singh said.