T3 security building process
 

Does anybody know what's the thing being built before security at T3?

Thanks!

Where is "security" at T3?

Do you speak of the hand luggage X-ray detection? I think that the whole "shopping area" located just before those X-ray machines will be replaced by new check-in counters; maybe the work has already begun?

Indeed, T3 was so well planned that there was a shortage of check-in counters from day one. Which is a brilliant achievement when thinking of the huge cost of this new airport ............

I am talking about the area after the check in hall and immediately before the entrance to the hand luggage and personal scanning ( which is just before passport control). For a few months now they have fenced part of this hall and are building something... perhaps to streamline the process of the access to security hall?

I had heard they were going to put in more check-in counters there...

As El-Al 1971 said, the airport was poorly sized when it came to check-in counter space. (Or perhaps more precisely, the check-in counters were overwhelmed by the security positions)

CO is gung-ho about kiosks.... I'm a bit surprised that they don't rely a bit more on kiosks to at least issue boarding passes, the IAA should put a line of common-use kiosks on the street-side of the check-in area, then people can get their BPs, go through the interview and then just drop their bags, this would reduce the counter space needed.

In addition, and I really wish they'd push on this... I was in HKG a year ago, and they have a train called Airport Express which has a couple of stops but goes directly from the city center to the airport. The major stops: Hong Kong and Kowloon have check-in counters for the airport, they have agents and you can check your bags. If they could manage to do even half of that for Haifa, Tel Aviv (merkaz and azrieli), and Jerusalem when its ready, I think A) a lot more people would use the train, and B) they would relieve pressure on the airport.

They used to have exactly that at the train station - but before the train line opened! You could check in at the Tel Aviv train station, including your luggage/security/BP etc. Cost was NIS 10 or so IIRC.

Yeah but that wasn't nearly as useful. How nice would it be to be able to get dropped off in the city, have your BP in hand, your luggage out of hand, and can hop on a comfy train and arrive right at the airport.

Due to "bad" design, the whole mall will vanish, new counters form check-ins and security..

Well, what happened was that they thought that loads of people would go shopping in the landside mall as you could go there without security, so people accompanying passengers and just about anyone else would want to go shopping there. However, this never happened, as I guess the shops were more expensive than the shops in conventional malls, and of course no traveler was going to shop there if they could get the same duty free 5 minutes later so the whole thing turned out to be a rather big commercial disaster instead of the goldmine it was expected to be.

On the other side the security specifications were changed shortly before the airport opened, with far more space required than in the original plans, so much more space was needed for security. I guess that they are now going to use the wasted space from the hopeless landside mall for more checkin facilities, which are desperately required, as per ebzed's post.

Interesting. In any case, the shops there were really not interesting..... Newspapers stands, coffee shops and one or two small boutiques, that was almost all...

Regarding the security specifications, I do not see any change compared to what prevailed in the old terminal. But I remember that a very short time before the opening of T3, a totally new security procedure was announced for BGN. The security "interviews" were going to be supressed, and brand new machines introduced. One consequence was that passengers could not be accompanied by non-flying family members or friends at security and check-in, as was the case before. As a first stage, this new system was introduced only for El Al flights, and for that matter the El Al area in the old check-in hall was modified. Shortly after the introduction of this new system, the hijacking attempt of an El Al flight to Turkey took place.

In any case, this "new system" was not applied to other airlines and was not even maintained for El Al as we are back to the very usual "interviews". The only difference compared to the situation in the old terminal is that 100% of the checked-in luggage goes effectively through a security machine - and not only the luggage of "suspicious" passengers.

Plenty of times when things are busy I've been cleared by security to proceed straight to security, without by luggage going through the xray.