From lighters to scissors, 25,000 prohibited items removed from air passengers' bag every day

New Delhi: From lighters to scissors to knives, around 25,000 prohibited items are taken out from the baggage of air passengers at airports in a day in the country and handling each of these items takes around three minutes, according to aviation security agency BCAS.

As the air traffic in the country continues to rise, BCAS chief Zulfiquar Hasan on Monday stressed that time diverted for such prohibited items in the hand and check-in baggage can be otherwise utilised by the agency to deal with other graver threats.

"We screen about 8 lakh bags which are hand baggage and about 5 lakh items that are checked in by passengers. This is a huge number," he said and added that on a daily basis, an average of around 25,000 prohibited items are found.

In the hand baggage, 26 per cent of the prohibited items found are cigarette lighters, 22 per cent are scissors, 16 per cent are knives and 14 per cent liquids/ aerosols.

When it comes to check-in baggage, Hasan said that around 44 per cent of the prohibited items are power banks, 19 per cent are cigarette lighters, 18 per cent are loose batteries and 11 per cent are laptops.

The Director General of BCAS said the impact is that if the passengers did not carry these prohibited items, then around 1,250 hours could be saved.

It takes about three minutes minimum to handle each of the prohibited item found in the baggage, he said.

"If you calculate the 25,000 (prohibited items) and 3 minutes, that is 75,000 minutes, that is about 1,250 hours... If passengers had not carried these things, we would have saved 1,250 hours... (that time) should go more for (dealing with) graver threats," he said at a briefing in the national capital.

Emphasising that aviation security is essential for the growth of the country's aviation sector, Hasan said efforts are being made to people aware and ensure that everyone follows the rules.

"It is our failure that we are not able to tell the passengers that these items are prohibited... India has a lot of first-time travellers, much more than any part of the world. We need to have an education policy," he noted.

Besides, the watchdog has asked airport operators to ensure that commercial advertisements are not displayed on the screens at security checkpoints inside the airports.

"In the security checkpoint areas, we have already mandated that you cannot show commercial advertisements... all over the world, it is the security-related warnings that are given," he said and added that the time spent by passengers at security checkpoints should be used in a productive manner.

BCAS is giving ideas about how to display security-related information and the airport operators concerned develop them, he said while briefing at an event to mark the Aviation Security Culture Week which will be celebrated from July 31 to August 5.

Further, Hasan said that having more area for security checks will help in ensuring that passengers will take lesser time, and technologies are being used to speed up the process.

Cyber threats and possible drone attacks are among the major threats to aviation, he said.