Smiths Detection has received a contract from Lufthansa Cargo to provide multiple HI-SCAN 180180-2is advanced technology X-Ray systems and IONSCAN 500DT explosives trace detection units to support air cargo screening throughout the Americas. Terms of the contract were not disclosed. The deployments, which Lufthansa Cargo is doing at locations outside the U.S., have already begun. “Lufthansa Cargo has deployed Advanced Technology (AT) X-Ray and or trace detection equipment at all stations within Canada, Mexico, Columbia, Ecuador and Brazil,” James LoBello, head of Security The Americas for Lufthansa Cargo, tells TR2 via an email response to questions. Currently all cargo loaded on passenger planes in the U.S. is screened for explosives. Lufthansa Cargo is part of Germany’s Lufthansa Group. The Transportation Security Administration wants all cargo loaded on passenger planes bound for the U.S. from international airports screened for explosives by the end of 2011. Mark Laustra, vice president of U.S. Major Accounts for Smiths Detection, tells TR2 that screening technology sales into the U.S. to meet air cargo inspection needs are mostly exhausted although there is some room for more business as cargo volume picks up. However, on the international front, there are a lot of countries where there is little screening technology for air cargo, he says, so an increase of sales is expected. He also notes that in the United Kingdom, freight forwarders at typically using single-view X-Ray systems for air cargo screening while homeland security officials there want explosives detection systems or AT X-Ray to be used, which means additional sales opportunities.