Air service|The congestion at Helsinki-Vantaa’s security check has eased since Thursday, although the number of passengers typically increases per weekend.
Consumers’ Association intends to find out how the responsibilities are distributed to the different parties when a passenger is late for his flight due to congestion at the security check, as happened last week at Helsinki-Vantaa Airport.
“The situation is unclear and difficult for the consumer. There is, so to speak, no clear answer to this”, General Secretary of the Finnish Confederation of Consumers’ Associations Juha Beurling-Pomoell tells.
“It is not the case that all consumers can apply for compensation of y amount from place x,” he adds.
According to the consumer association, the responsibility of airlines, airport company Finavia and insurance companies in the situation is unclear.
According to Beurling-Pomoelli, the situation is affected, for example, by whether the consumer has been informed that they should arrive at the field earlier than usual. There is also an effect, for example, on the opening hours of self-service machines and counters for checked baggage.
Beurling-Pomoell believes that the Consumers’ Association will receive answers to the open questions next week.
Some dozens of Finnair customers were late for their flights in the past week due to traffic jams at the Helsinki-Vantaa security check, the airline’s director of communications Days Tallqvist tells STT. The reason behind the congestion is the fluid regulations that changed at the beginning of September.
The customers have not received their money back for the flights, because according to Tallqvist, the customer is basically responsible for being on time for the flight. In individual cases, Finnair has rerouted some customers whose flights were delayed for an additional fee.
Tallqvist sees that Finnair’s communication about the liquid change has been sufficient. According to him, customers have been informed about the fluid change on Finnair’s social media, mobile application and e-mail.
Lunar The security check jams at Helsinki-Vantaa airport that started at the beginning have eased, STT is told by Finavia.
During the worst rush hour on Saturday morning, between 6 and 8 o’clock, the queues were moderate, says Pia Fast About Finavia’s communication. The security check lines stayed around 5-10 minutes.
“At the moment, the liquid change news has apparently caught the passengers as well. This is the biggest contributing factor to the fact that the security screening process is going very well at the moment.”
According to Fast, queuing already decreased during Thursday and Friday, although the number of passengers typically increases per weekend.
With Finavia additional resources had been prepared for the fluid change, but information about the change had not reached all passengers.
“What surprised us at the beginning of the week was that even every other passenger had oversized liquids that had to be checked and removed.”
Finavia says that it announced the fluid change a good month before it came into force.
“At the end of July, we received information about this decision of the EU Commission and immediately after that we started to prepare for the implementation of the regulation in Helsinki-Vantaa and also to communicate it to the public,” says Fast.
According to Fast, Finavia’s challenge in informing about the change has been that the airport company does not have a direct communication link with passengers, but the information goes largely through airlines and tour operators.
to Helsinki-Vantaa 50,000–60,000 passengers pass through airport security every day. The functions of the inspection are measured according to the passenger forecasts announced by the airlines.
“If there is something to be checked separately in hand luggage, the process as a whole inevitably slows down,” says Fast.
In recent days, according to Finavia, passengers have already been more aware of the fluid change. According to Fast, at the moment it seems that the worst congestion at the security check is over.
“At the moment it looks really good. I believe that the queues and congestion caused by the initial change will be resolved.”
Air passengers the new liquid restrictions came into effect last weekend. According to Finavia, the worst traffic jams at the Helsinki-Vantaa airport security check were seen on Wednesday afternoon. The security check was congested at that time even though there was no significant spike in the number of passengers, Fast says.
“On Wednesday afternoon, there has been a waiting time of more than an hour, according to the passengers even two hours,” he says.
Fast suspects that part of the reason for the backlog of security checks has been the fact that passengers have not had a clear idea of what is considered a liquid in air traffic.
“Other than, for example, drinks are counted as liquids. Among those removed from the beginning of the week were many smoothies and food items packed in packages of more than 100 milliliters or 100 grams,” says Fast.
According to Finavia, you can influence the smoothness of the security check by preparing yourself at home to follow the instructions given by the airline for packing and the time to be booked at the airport.
The recommendation on how much time should be set aside for doing business at the airport depends on the airline and the destination. Typically, the recommendation is 2–3 hours, Fast states.
The new ones Due to EU regulations, the maximum size of a liquid package allowed in hand luggage is one hundred milliliters.
The limit of one hundred milliliters was in use in Helsinki-Vantaa until the summer of 2023, but after that the allowed package size increased to two liters. At that time, the airport also had new through-lighting devices, and liquids and electronics no longer had to be removed from hand luggage.
You can still take a total of two liters of liquids in hand luggage to the security check of flights departing from Helsinki-Vantaa, and you can keep them in your bag during the check.
The liquid decision made by the EU Commission is temporary. It is based on the suspicion that the new C3 transillumination scanners do not reliably detect explosives in larger liquid containers.
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