Zurich Airport’s CT scanners are faster — and not by accident

Zurich Airport likes to present its new security setup as a success, and on the evidence provided, it has a point. For three months now, all hand luggage has been screened with CT scanners, after the first devices were introduced in December 2025. The airport says the result is a smoother process and, more importantly for anyone who has ever stood in a queue watching the clock, a throughput increase of up to 30 percent.

The principle is familiar enough from medicine: the scanners create three-dimensional images, allowing security staff to inspect bags on a screen from different angles. Jasmin Bodmer-Breu, the airport’s spokesperson, says this makes checks more comfortable and more efficient. Airports tend to use the word efficient when they mean that fewer people and machines are producing more movement, but in this case the claim appears to be backed by the numbers.

That said, technology is not a miracle cure. Certain items still cause extra work because the scanner cannot clearly identify them or flags them as potentially dangerous. The airport cites Jass and Uno cards, as well as double-walled thermos flasks, as examples. Bodmer-Breu advises passengers to remove such items from hand luggage, empty the flask and place it separately in the tray. Apparently even the future has to pause for playing cards and insulated bottles.

Queues, the airport also admits, do not disappear simply because the hardware is new. Staffing remains decisive, and it has to be in the right place at the right time. Passengers are expected to help too, which is the modern airport’s way of saying that the system works best when everyone behaves as if they have somewhere to be. Zurich Airport has therefore added a time calculator on its website and a “find flight” function that provides a recommendation for when travellers should arrive.

The Zurich case is not unique, but neither is CT screening yet universal. Laura Frommberg, editor-in-chief of Aerotelegraph, says the technology is spreading, though it still comes with costs and operational effort, especially because airports cannot simply shut down for two weeks and install new systems in peace. That is why the transition can be uncomfortable at first, as Zurich has already experienced.

Frommberg estimates that roughly one in eight commercial airports currently has at least one CT screening lane. That is enough to make the technology increasingly familiar, but not enough to call it standard. Zurich may therefore be ahead of the curve, but only in the modest way airports prefer: by improving efficiency, while leaving the rest of the mess — staffing, queues and the occasional thermos flask — exactly where it belongs.

Written by Freya Stensrud freya.stensrud@alpineweekly.com