A few weeks before the Easter holidays, the transport ministers of the 16 federal states will discuss smoother passenger checks at airports next week. The states had suggested that the federal government transfer responsibility for security checks to the airports, said the chairman of the Conference of Transport Ministers (VMK), North Rhine-Westphalia's department head Oliver Krischer (Greens), the German Press Agency in Düsseldorf. The federal government has now basically cleared the way. The current state of affairs will be discussed at the two-day VMK in the middle of the week (March 22 to 23) in Aachen. Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP) will also take part in the conference, said Krischer.

In recent years - with the exception of Bavaria - the federal government has been responsible for passenger checks at airports. In the years of the corona pandemic, however, it turned out that the structures of the federal police could not cope with the onslaught of passengers. This led to ugly scenes and long waiting times, especially during holiday periods. Changes are now possible, so that such situations will no longer have to arise in the future, said Krischer.

The Frankfurt airport operator Fraport has been controlling the deployment of private security forces itself since the turn of the year; the Federal Police is still in charge of security policy supervision. The airports of Düsseldorf, Cologne/Bonn, Hanover and Stuttgart, among others, have also expressed an interest in controlling the passenger controls themselves, Krischer reported.