Heathrow Airport says that installing next-generation security scanners that will eliminate restrictions on liquids in hand luggage will cost around £1 billion (US $1.4 billion), with the much-delayed project still far from complete.
The British government had called on airports to install the Computed Tomography (CT) scanners by the end of 2022, but due to the pandemic, the deadline was pushed back by two years to June 2024.
When that deadline came and went, the British government ordered major airports like Heathrow, which is Europe’s busiest, to have the CT scanners fully rolled out by June 2025. The project is, however, still far from complete.
It has been reported that one of the reasons behind the long delays at Heathrow is that the new scanners are so big and heavy that the flooring in some parts of the airport had to be reinforced to bear the weight of the machines.
Chief Executive Thomas Woldbye insisted on Thursday, however, that there hadn’t really been a “hold up” and that it was simply taking Heathrow to roll out the eagerly anticipated new technology because they had so many machines to replace.
“It’s just Heathrow has to replace probably as many scanners as all of the British airports put together,” Woldbye explained as the airport revealed that pre-tax profits had plummeted 37% to £203 million in the first half of 2025.
Part of the reason for the big drop was attributed to the costs of installing the CT scanners, along with the associated costs of training security staff to use the machines.
CT scanners create a 3D image of the contents of luggage, which is then analysed by sophisticated algorithms to detect weapons, explosives, and other prohibited items, including liquid explosives.
The scanning process is actually slower than existing X-ray machines, but it’s believed that security lines will move faster because passengers won’t need to unpack their bags, and there will be far fewer ‘rejected’ bags requiring additional inspection.
Once the rollout is complete, Heathrow will be allowed to lift the existing liquids restrictions that have been in place for nearly two decades.
The existing restrictions on liquids in hand luggage were hurriedly introduced in 2006 when intelligence services smashed a terror cell that had planned to blow up planes on transatlantic flights using liquid explosives that were concealed in bottles of soft drink.
In order to mitigate the risk of this type of attack ever taking place, aviation authorities around the world immediately slashed the amount of liquids that passengers could bring on board the plane with them.
The new CT scanners, however, have advanced detection capabilities that could identify a liquid explosive.
Once the rollout is complete, passengers will be able to take up to two liters of liquid in their hand luggage. So far, only a few airports, including Edinburgh and Birmingham airports, have been approved to lift the liquid restriction.
London City Airport was the first to lift the liquid restriction, although the airport was forced to temporarily reimpose liquid limits after concerns were raised about just how good the CT scanner algorithm was.
A number of airports across Europe have also been able to relax hand luggage rules with the rollout of CT scanners, but in the United States, there is still a big question mark over when the unpopular 3-1-1 rules might be lifted.
Last year, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) warned that it could be at least another decade before the US was in a position to ease liquids restrictions because of the slow deployment of CT scanners.
DHS Secretary Kriti Noem has, however, stated that it’s her ambition to have liquid restrictions lifted far earlier than that estimate. Noem has already lifted the need for passengers to remove footwear at the TSA security checkpoint – a requirement that had been long forgotten in most other parts of the world.
