There’s a new screening at Sarasota Bradenton airport. You can now take your temperature

Passengers flying out of Sarasota Bradenton International Airport can now step up to a kiosk and privately take their own temperature. Then they can decide whether boarding a flight is the right thing to do.

Passengers who use the screening see a reflection of their head filling a head-shaped outline, then wait a few seconds for the automatic scan. There is nothing to touch.

No one else sees the result of the scan, and it is not recorded. The service is free and private, and the airport won’t keep those with fever off of flights.

While the screening is optional for passengers, Bradenton airport employees are required to get a temperature check.

The new non-contact passenger temperature screening kiosks, located in the ticket wing near the up escalator, and near the checkpoint screening area on the second floor, are part of the airport’s “Fly Safe” program.

Use by passengers is voluntary to help them decide whether they are healthy enough to fly. Signs at the kiosk advise that people with elevated body temperature — 100.4 degrees or more — should not travel and should seek medical evaluation.

A third kiosk is reserved for airport authority employees, who are required to be screened for elevated temperatures before starting their daily work shift.

The scanners, purchased for $3,000 each, were developed from military-grade thermal sensing cameras and have been deployed for several years in Asian and European airports. The technology is distributed by Toronto-based BeMotion Inc.

“The daily temperature screening of our employees is another layer of safety protection for our passengers. The voluntary temperature kiosks for passengers provides an added self-screening service to the traveling public,” said Rick Piccolo, airport president and CEO.

While most major airlines have made wearing a mask mandatory on flights, they have not introduced mandatory temperature screening.

Kent Kirschner, director U.S. operations for BeMotion, said that SRQ is one of the first airports in the United States to introduce the scanners.

“I think that some time in the future it will be mandatory,” Kirschner said.

In April, SRQ passenger traffic fell 95 percent, compared to the same month a year earlier, due to COVID-19 concerns. Traffic has been slowly building since then, but is still far off the pace set by the airport before the pandemic, when it was one of the fastest growing airports in the United States.

In June, Allegiant, one of the few airlines still flying full flights out of Sarasota Bradenton International Airport, and one of the prime movers in SRQ’s record passenger growth in recent years, announced that it was stepping up its health and safety requirements during the pandemic.

Since July 2, Allegiant customers have been required to wear face masks during all phases of travel, including at the ticket counter, in the gate area, during boarding, on the aircraft and during the flight.

The new temperature check kiosks do not replace other safety measures that are already in place at SRQ.

Some of those measures include increased cleaning of all touch points by janitors, mandatory use of masks by all employees, Plexiglas shields, and social distancing markers placed in all queuing lines. Signage and public address announcements are also used as reminders to follow Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines for preventing the spread of COVID-19.

This story was originally published August 6, 2020 at 12:58 PM.