With a surface area of 570 hectares, only a small part of the area and facilities at the airport are freely accessible, but with 13,000 employees reporting for duty at the airport over every 24-hour period security is a number one priority.

The airport, which is northern Germany’s number one gateway to Europe, handles more than 150,000 takeoffs and landings per year and 42,000 passengers per day, therefore access to working areas for personnel must be constantly monitored to guarantee complete passenger safety.

With employees spread across the airport in a mix of different jobs, all of which are assigned different authorisations, a powerful, flexible and failure-proof access control system was needed. Existing magnetic stripe cards were replaced with LEGIC chip cards with contactless reader technology, with the numerous individual access rights defined and loaded on the cards by Interflex. Each card also features a passport type photograph of the holder as an added security measure.

A total of 78 contactless reader terminals were installed at various access points throughout the airport. Approximately 10,000 employees received computer-readable badges, while the system is designed for a total of 20,000 master records, making it adaptable enough to handle future growth. The Interflex technology made it easy to allocate the cards to the respective zones and hence to define the individual access privileges.

Head of security at Hamburg Airport, Dieter Bode, particularly praised the flexibility of the system, as it is able to handle additional functions by using the same badges. Around 2,000 employees already use their chip cards as a parking ticket as well as an ID badge, and it is envisaged that further functions such as canteen and automatic fuel pump usage will be incorporated onto the cards in due course.

With the security of the air travelling public very much in the public eye, the Hamburg Airport installation shows that modern chip card access control solutions, through their numerous configuration possibilities, offer almost limitless expandability through the incorporation of biometrics technology to offer even greater levels of future security.

Further information:
Marcus Geigle
Interflex Datensysteme GmbH & Co KG

Tel:+49 711 1322 108


Marcel Germann
LEGIC Identsystems Ltd
Tel: +44 1 933 6432

Press enquiries:
Keith Carey
Bamboo PR
Tel: +44 (0) 1322 303050
Fax: +44 (0) 1795 537195

About LEGIC

LEGIC Identsystems Ltd, with headquarters in Switzerland, is a world leader in the design and manufacture of 13.56MHz contactless smart card technology. Their product portfolio includes highly integrated LEGIC RF Standard and ISO 15693 and ISO 14443 compliant read/write chip sets. Security Modules and transponder chips for integration into third party products.

LEGIC Identsystems currently work with over 130 external co-operation partners world-wide who offer compatible LEGIC based applications including access control, cashless payment, parking, e-ticketing and multiplication’s in both workplace and leisure applications.