5.2.2009
Security waiting times posted

Feeling stressed about your trip before you even leave home? Copenhagen Airport will now be posting real-time queuing times for its security checkpoint on its website and displaying them on signs in the departure halls. The information is intended to help give passengers a good start to their trip by giving them a better idea of what lies ahead.

Passengers can already check security queuing times online from home and then again when they arrive at the airport. The system will be up and running just before the school winter holiday, which is the first peak travel week of the year for the airport.

“With our new monitoring system, we can display security waiting times in real time so passengers can size up the situation and plan their time better. We know it will help give them a better start to their trip,” said Johnnie Müller, head of Security at Copenhagen Airports A/S.

Waiting times down, satisfaction up
In 2008, the average queuing time for security clearance was down to three and a half minutes. Last summer, which saw a record number of passengers at CPH, waiting times were less than three minutes for more than 90 per cent of the passengers.

“We have been working for the past couple of years to bring down waiting times and raise customer satisfaction with our security checkpoint, and even though the regulatory requirements we have to meet keep getting stricter and stricter, we have still been able to reduce queuing times. We’ve managed to do that by hiring more Security personnel and working specifically to improve the customer service we provide at the checkpoint,” said Müller.

CPH among the first
A major airport disclosing its security waiting times is unprecedented, and although experience shows that times to pass through security can creep up above acceptable levels, CPH has decided to be open about it.

“How much pressure is on the security checkpoint varies depending on traffic intensity, and we continually adjust the number of screening personnel to the situation at hand. Every once in a while there will be queues anyway, and when that happens it’s important to get rid of them as quickly as possible and to inform passengers how long they can expect to wait. It calms passengers to be informed,” Müller explained.

Busy week
In the coming week’s busy winter holiday traffic, an even larger number of travellers will benefit from the new service.

“We get a lot of passengers in the winter holiday that are less experienced travellers: there are many families with children, for example.
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For this reason, we’ve opened the family lane at the checkpoint and hope that the new security queue information will help them have an even better and less stressful start to their holiday,” said Müller