New (as of 2019) airport CT scanners

[Klaus Mähring]

Hurghada Airport: Zero problem, swipe/handcheck upon request.
Edinburgh Airport: Changed their forthcoming policies, 4x5 Portra 160 has to go through CT (I was lucky, an elderly security who had color printed before in his life went to a dark room and fumbled in the boxes, no damage).
Vienna: Even though usually rather unfriendly, they are ok with passing 4x5 Portra 160 through their old xRay. If any problem arises, ask for the duty officer.

 

[koraks]

4x5 Portra 160 has to go through CT

That's bad news.

 

[Sanug]

Duesseldorf (DUS) airport, Gate B: CT scanner. Handcheck requested, no problem. Performed swipe test.

I recommend to unpack all of the rolls and put them into a transparent bag with zip lock.

 

[srardnec]

When I visited Russia .../...there were more X-ray machines than I had ever encountered before .../... security at Moscow airport either didn’t understand what I was asking or simply wouldn’t make exceptions even for very fast film.

I didn’t develop or scan any of the film myself, but I didn’t see anything I would attribute to X-ray damage. I’m still paranoid about CT damage though.

yes in Russia x-ray starts at the border customs. Coach stations, railways stations, airports have x-ray tunnels at the entrances and big airports have also additional x-ray tunnels in transit corridors. As you mention, museums and some other public places. So every time you travel there is an x-ray pass, but these don't indeed damage film up to iso 400 for sure. I am frequent traveler and never experienced any damage, with films that went through 15x -rays along the way.
Still I prefer to lower the amount of passes, by asking for side inspection at airports.
Last time was five days ago on a Murmansk-SPb flight. As soon I pronounced photographic film, the agent very kindly told me "oh yes give it for side inspection", yet they don't use CT machines. The side inspection was some kind of hand held device put over the rolls.

after once at Oslo airport I had to unpack all rolls from their boxes, and ended with a mess of unknown Fomapan isos because the white paper foil has no marking, since I always throw the boxes, mark the foil, pack all rolls thigh in a clear plastic, so I hand the small pack to security. This the exposed one from last week in Murmansk, SPb, Pskov, still had no time to develop:

sheet film, I have a sheet outside the box, so to show that it is negative film.


In Russia they may not understand what you mean unless you say it in russian: plionka is photographic film, but then no issue.


============

Airports i have been at in recent years do all graciously a side inspection: Oslo, Genève, Lyon, Bruxelles, Berlin, Hamburg, Tallinn, Riga, Gdansk, Warszawa, Krakow, Vilnius, Helsinki, Murmansk, Sankt Peterburg, Pskov, Vnukovo, Sheremetyevo, Domodedovo, Magadan, Yakutsk (well these two are in Asia). It is a non issue.

 

[Fatih Ayoglu]

Few updates, Bangkok BKK and Chiang Mai airports have old school XRAy scanners. They are happy to provide hand inspections to films as well as cameras loaded with films.

Paris CDG T2E K gates, transfer scanners are upgraded to CTs. They are happy with hand inspections of films however if your camera has film inside, they have a small Xray machine for that purpose.

 

[Dr. no]

As a long-term contributor to this (and the other airport X-ray thread) I would suggest switching this to reporting PROBLEMS with hand checks, or other stories rather than the presence of ct scanners, which will only become more ubiquitous.

Just went through Tokyo Haneda this week, the fastest and most courteous hand check ever, complete with the two-handed presentation on completion!

 

[Sanug]

Santa Cruz de La Palma (SPC): My films went through Xray machine. No CT scanner. No hand check. The films are fine.

 

[Prest_400]

I regularly fly BCN and this last time during April 26 I actually noticed that the information screens, which alternate the different policies, actually included one specifically for film. An icon of a film roll and information to inform the staff if carrying it. Good!
Had again no issues, the agent was rather thorough this time and felt through the rolls, as half of the about 10-15 rolls I carried were unexposed and sealed (120). As I recall writing somewhere, I prefer to keep the factory foil/wrapper and have had no issues at all.

BCN T1 Fast Track has 2x CT scanner. I haven’t asked them about the film but giving the fact that standard lane is far and there wasn’t any XRay equipment in vicinity, I’d assume they’ll provide hand check for films.

As a long-term contributor to this (and the other airport X-ray thread) I would suggest switching this to reporting PROBLEMS with hand checks, or other stories rather than the presence of ct scanners, which will only become more ubiquitous.

Just went through Tokyo Haneda this week, the fastest and most courteous hand check ever, complete with the two-handed presentation on completion!

Pretty much, itçs positive for us that the handcheck policies have become commonplace.

 

[Alex Benjamin]

Paris CDG T2E K gates, transfer scanners are upgraded to CTs. They are happy with hand inspections of films however if your camera has film inside, they have a small Xray machine for that purpose.

Good to know ! I'll be there in a couple of weeks.

 

[Tel]

Dublin airport last week: had 7 rolls of 35mm film in a plastic bag; held it up and asked for hand inspection, the security guy asked me to stand next to him as he did swipe tests. Very fast, thorough and courteous and my film was never out of my sight.

 

[Agulliver]

Edinburgh Airport: Changed their forthcoming policies, 4x5 Portra 160 has to go through CT (I was lucky, an elderly security who had color printed before in his life went to a dark room and fumbled in the boxes, no damage).

I would like to remind everyone that the UK's Department for Transport has issued an instruction that all UK civil airports permit hand inspection of photosensitive materials. I don't have a copy of their letter on the computer I'm currently at but I've attached it to earlier messages in this thread. It might be worth printing off a copy in case of any issues.

 

[halfaman]

I flyed recentrly from Terminal 1 of Berlin-Brandenburgh airport where they had a ton of CT scanners. Very nice and competent staff, I just showed the film to have a "manual inspection". No words exchange needed. The film went through a small conventional X-Ray machine they have on the exit and the explosives control.

 

[Lachlan Young]

Edinburgh Airport: Changed their forthcoming policies, 4x5 Portra 160 has to go through CT (I was lucky, an elderly security who had color printed before in his life went to a dark room and fumbled in the boxes, no damage).
Vienna: Even though usually rather unfriendly, they are ok with passing 4x5 Portra 160 through their old xRay. If any problem arises, ask for the duty officer.

Got film manually inspected in both last week. Edinburgh seem well briefed about 135/120 not going through CT (even to the point of asking if there was film in the camera), not tried flying through with sheet film. I've flown out of Edinburgh several times with film since the new scanners came in & not had any problems getting it manually checked.
Vienna tried to claim their machines were safe to 800, but got it manually inspected there too.

 

[ChrisGalway]

Here’s a first (for me), at Rome FCO Airport T3 today they have CT scanners and they are clearly marked “NO FILM
SAFE”! Of course they hand inspected/swabbed my film, all very courteous and efficient.

 

[Ardpatrick]

Dublin airport last week: had 7 rolls of 35mm film in a plastic bag; held it up and asked for hand inspection, the security guy asked me to stand next to him as he did swipe tests. Very fast, thorough and courteous and my film was never out of my sight.

Good to hear as a Dublin resident. Last week I put two rolls of Delta 400 120 through the scanner in Dublin airport by accident - a very early morning flight and I forgot to unpack them.

Shot 1.5 rolls while traveling - nothing important. Upon return I took the 2nd unfinished roll out of the camera before passing through Glasgow airport and got a courteous hand check despite it being very busy.

I processed the rolls and both have heavy base fog, just from a single scanner pass. The images are there and probably printable. The unexposed half roll shows very clear wave patterns.

If it wasn’t already obvious before, it’s clear that even a single pass has significant impact on 400 ISO film.

 

[FredR]

I placed seven 35mm cassettes removed from their containers in a clear ziplock bag. At both BWI-concourse E (not busy) and LHR-terminal 5 (very busy), a security agent graciously accepted the bag for hand inspection, and each did a chemical trace test on the inside of the bag.

 

[ntenny]

To my surprise it appears no one has reported on Beijing yet. I just went through domestic security in terminal 2 at Beijing Capital (PEK), and it was plain x-ray scanners.

What was a little unusual is that they wanted all cables and all cameras to come out and be scanned separately. They must have thought my Contax IIIa was an artifact from another planet, but it didn’t seem to give them any pause. But for anyone else passing through this security regime, expect to unpack and re-pack some stuff. No CT scanners at this time, though.

(I didn’t get any photo time in Beijing, but the bayfront in Dalian was all right. A good street photographer could have some fun there, as in pretty much any Chinese city.)

-NT

 

[halfaman]

At least security check for Terminal 2 in Stuttgart airport has standard X-Ray machines. No problem to pass film through them.

 

[ChrisGalway]

Venice Marco Polo has CT scanners and despite being very busy there was no problem at all on May 30, 2026 in getting my film hand-inspected by polite staff.

At this point I'm curious: Has anyone had their request for hand-inspection of film at CT airport scanners REFUSED? If so, which airport(s) and when?

I get the impression from all the responses in this thread that airports around the world now permit hand-inspection of film if they have CT scanners installed. This is good news for our community/hobby.

 

[Alex Benjamin]

At this point I'm curious: Has anyone had their request for hand-inspection of film at CT airport scanners REFUSED? If so, which airport(s) and when?

Happened to me once, in Marseille, in 2022. Impossible to tell if it was because the security officer was following policy or just in a bad mood that day.