SMARTER BAGGAGE HALL DESIGN WITH ICS AT LONDON STANSTED AIRPORT

ECAC COMPLIANCE PAVES WAY FOR OPPORTUNITY TO REPLACE LEGACY BHS

As part of a strategic airport transformation project, London Stansted Airport found the process of complying with ECAC Standard 3 an opportunity to transform their entire baggage handling system and deliver increased efficiency and performance.

The upgrade was based on the BEUMER autover® cart-based ICS, known for its one-bag-per-carrier design that increases traceability and security at every stage of the handling process.

The whole landscape of the baggage hall was changed and the layout remodelled with the new fast-track system with proven integration to Standard 3 compliance, which allowed the airport to offset, and partly compensate for, additional BHS costs through greater efficiency.

The upgrade to new ECAC Standard 3-compliant x-ray equipment required a complete rethink as the new HBS machines were bigger and could not get in where the old Standard 2 machines were.

The solution was a new, reworked system design with a screening area at one end, and a pre-sort system that integrates with a set of new check-ins as well as all the existing check-ins. The airport also required perfect belt-to-belt transfer to parts of the existing baggage handling system, which was also a perfect fit for the BEUMER autover solution that has carts with a conveyor belt, thereby allowing seamless interface from one conveyor to another.

PHASED BHS INSTALLATION PROJECT

The installation work was scheduled to align with upgrades to the airport’s check-in areas, carried out as part of an ongoing transformation project, as well as with the installation of new HBS ECAC 3-compliant screening machines required by updated EU regulations.

The first phase of the project involved carefully constructing the rail and new chutes in and around the existing layout of conveyer belts. This allowed the airport to remain fully operational during the project with a capacity to process thousands of bags daily.

The double stacked autover system was completed in two years, and today each bag takes about six minutes to travel from check-in to being ready for make-up and loading onto an aircraft.

DESIGNED WITH THE FUTURE IN MIND

The new autover system has been designed to handle more bags per minute, and it is also future proof for years to come. The system design is easily scalable and allows for any future airport and BHS expansions as well as a changing mix of airlines and increase in bag-to-passenger ratio.

LONDON STANSTED AIRPORT BHS

• BEUMER autover® cart-based ICS system
• 100% track and trace of each bag at every stage of handling
• 180 autoca
• 2,310 m/7,579 ft rail system
• 102 destinations
• 2 manual encoding station (MES)
• 1 maintenance station
• 3180 bags/hour baggage handling capacity
• Real-time visualisation and individual cart control