The UK Government’s (UKGs) aviation security regulations[1]
stipulate that by June 2024, all UK airports that were handling
over 1 million passengers annually in 2019, will be required to
have replaced 2-D cabin baggage screening machines with Next
Generation Security (NGS) 3-D scanners. Based on its pre-pandemic
passenger volumes, Cardiff Airport must comply with this
Direction.
As well as mitigating security risks, these scanners will enable
passengers to leave laptops and liquids in their carry-on
baggage, so will reduce the delay and inconvenience associated
with going through security screening. Without these scanners,
Cardiff Airport would have to terminate commercial passenger
operations by the regulatory deadline of June 2024.
The installation of these scanners is part of the airport’s
planned capital investment programme, agreed with the Welsh
Government as part of its pandemic rescue and restructuring plan.
As recent visitors to the airport may have noticed, work is
currently underway to install the scanners in time to meet the
deadline.
However, as experienced by many other airports across the UK, the
cost of installing the scanners at Cardiff Airport has escalated
significantly from initial estimates. This is partly due to
inflation but also due to the complexity of installing the
equipment in a 1970’s era building; a process which has required
the safe removal of asbestos in a live operational environment.
Cardiff Airport is still recovering from the devastating impact
on its business from the pandemic. The airport has recovered by
58% so far with 28 of the 52 non-stop routes historically
serviced, back up and running, and facilitating 910k passengers
last year. There remain inflationary and other pressures on the
airport’s cost base.
Whilst aviation security is a reserved matter for the UK
Government, it has consistently refused to provide any financial
support for the respective UK airports to make the transition to
NGS to meet the new legislated deadlines, despite the ongoing
inflationary pressures on the industry.
Consequently, the Welsh Government, as the sole investor in
the airport, has determined that on a commercial basis it
should provide an equity investment of £6.6m to the airport, as a
one-off measure to address the cost challenges and meet
this compulsory regulatory requirement. This will ensure that
passenger security and safety at Cardiff is equivalent to that at
other regulated airports across the UK, and will protect the
Welsh Government’s investment in the airport for the longer term.
[1] Single
Consolidated Direction (Aviation)(Next Generation Security
Checkpoint)(Variation) 2020
