Established in 1994, Aviance Ghana Ltd provides a range of ground handling services at Ghana’s Kotoka International Airport, situated just outside the capital, Accra. The airport itself is Ghana’s premier international flight centre and is capable of accepting large aircrafts, such as the latest generation of Boeing 747. It occupies more than 650 hectares, with two large terminals for domestic/regional and international/long-haul operations that are connected by an internal walkway.
Terminal 2 is the principal international departure terminal and includes restaurants, duty-free shops and two Executive lounges for First and Business Class travellers. There are also two smaller terminals dedicated solely to diplomatic flights and military operations.
Aviance Ghana is one of eight companies making up the Aviance Alliance, which operates at more than 100 airport locations across 4 continents. At Kotoka, the ground services include managing all the passenger concourse facilities in Terminal 2, plus passenger check-in and baggage handling, the loading and unloading of cargo from freight flights and a cargo warehouse operation for all import and export needs.
Given that today’s security concerns require the aviation industry to maintain very high levels of protection measures, close scrutiny of the 650 hectare site that the airport occupies and protecting passengers, aircraft and cargo were the twin key objectives for Aviance when deciding to upgrade the Airport’s CCTV system. The company also recognised that intelligently deploying the camera infrastructure would be necessary to maximise cost-effectiveness and efficiency.
Aviance Ghana turned to Skylinks Technical Services Ltd and tasked them with designing a solution that would enable it to meet the EU’s ACC3 accreditation, the highest accreditation in the aviation industry. In turn, Skylinks turned to Hikvision for the design of an all-IP CCTV system capable of not only meeting the current challenges facing Aviance in its operation at Kotoka International Airport, but also providing an expandable base that could rise to meet future developments.
The new Skylink CCTV system design uses four different types of Hikvision IP cameras connected to a 32-channel, RAID 5 NVR over an entirely new Gigabit network infrastructure. According to Haim Atanelov, Skylinks General Manager, “The final brief for the CCTV upgrade included installation of new cameras in Aviance’s import and export cargo warehouses, both entry and exit vehicle gates, within the terminal public areas, at the biometric log-in area and associated turnstiles, and within the VIP lounge areas.
“In all of these disparate areas, we were challenged by Aviance to deliver high resolution images at all times and in all lighting conditions. It is these pressures that helped us in choosing Hikvision components, with their robust build quality, excellent video quality, and quick and simple installation and operation due to the user-friendly software. It also helped that the products offer very competitive prices and are accompanied by after-sales service and technical support from a first-class team.”
The CCTV system uses a combination of IP66-rated dome and bullet cameras with either 1.3 or 3MP resolution. A total of four DS-2CD2312-I 1.3MP Outdoor Network Mini Dome cameras were installed, two in the public areas of the terminal and two at the main gates where passengers complete the biometric log-in process and enter through the turnstiles. To complement the dome cameras, nine EXIR bullet cameras were used: five DS-2CD2212-I5 1.3 MP units for general surveillance in the warehouses together with a pair of DS-2CD2232-I5 3MP units where greater resolution was required, and two DS-2CD2632F-I 3MP Vari-focal EXIR cameras for the main vehicle entry and exit gates
