While the latest technology in the world is often impressive it is sometimes the less spectacular developments that can make the biggest difference to everyday inconveniences. Self-driving cars that allow you to travel in comfort and read a book sound good but they are also solving a problem most probably don’t really consider a problem.
Having to drive ourselves is the only reality we have ever known so the majority of us simply accept it without question. Psychologically, it is far more of an irritant when an already existing process suddenly becomes more complicated.
That is certainly the case when it comes to the procedure for boarding a flight. Rather than becoming more efficient as technology develops, anti-terrorism security procedures have made it ever more truncated. For 12 years now, introduced after a failed bomb plot, a strict regime around passengers taking liquids aboard a plane has caused endless delays and inconvenience to the security process. Every one of us has spent 10 minutes waiting while a passenger remonstrates with security staff in the process of confiscating liquid from their hand luggage. With the boom in the low cost aviation industry and increased regularity of hand luggage-only long weekends away around Europe, not being able to come back with a bottle of wine or olive oil is also frustrating.
However, the latest scanner technology may finally be about to wind back the clock and mean liquids can again be safely brought aboard flights. Brand new computed tomography scanners that produce 3D x-ray images of luggage are now able to detect hidden explosives. They are already being trialled in the UK at Heathrow, John F Kennedy in New York and Geneva and Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport in Europe.
The latest technology being used in the prototype scanners is similar to that used in hospitals to scan human organs or in maternity clinics for 3D images of unborn babies. The UK’s transport department was quick to stress that for now rules around liquids in hand luggage have not changed and there are no plans to do so immediately.
However, millions of travellers around the world will be delighted to hear that scanner technology is making progress towards the real prospect of bottles and aerosols again being permitted onto flights.