"Airport Screening Training Begins"

Wednesday, April 3, 2002

Airport Screening Training Begins


LINTHICUM, Md. (AP) -- Besides making airline passengers feel safe, the
government wants them to feel welcome.

That's the gist of the message that new airport security directors are
getting as training sessions begin for the federal employees taking over
airline security.

At sessions such as the one Wednesday at Baltimore-Washington International
Airport, one of the busiest in the East, the directors were told that
airports will be designed to get passengers through security as efficiently
as possible.

Courtesy and helpfulness for passengers are two screener traits in high
demand, they heard.

``Not only is security important, but customer satisfaction is important,''
said Kurt Krause, a Marriott International vice president who is one of
several corporate executives on loan to the new security agency.

With a computer-generated slide show as his backdrop, Krause stood before
dozens of new security supervisors and told them: ``If we don't deliver
confidence, if we don't deliver security, if we don't deliver customer
satisfaction, people aren't going to be willing to travel.''

For example, Krause said, screeners should borrow a page from the hotel
bellman's handbook: Sneak a peak at the tag on a laptop or carryon bag and
call the passenger by name.

Even before the first federal employees take up positions at screening
stations, passenger-friendly procedures are on display at a BWI concourse
checkpoint.

The security directors saw the way the airport screens passengers. Travelers
wait in zigzagging lines reminiscent of Walt Disney World as they head for
the checkpoints. Animated signs instruct them how to speed their passage
through security. A Disney executive on loan to the Transportation Security
Agency helped develop the plans for handling long lines of passengers.

Travelers selected for extra screening can sit in chairs when they are asked
to remove their shoes. Clear plastic partitions allow them to keep their
eyes on their property.

``I feel safer going through there,'' said Kylan Adams of Omaha, Neb.,
passing through the checkpoint to catch a flight home.

In Baltimore, officials were able to move passengers through the lines more
quickly by installing an extra security lane; segregating airport and
airline workers and passengers in wheelchairs; and hiring a line manager to
funnel people from the head of the line to the metal detectors.

As they set up the security checkpoints at their airports, the new federal
directors are drawing on Baltimore's experiences.

Ike Richardson, the new federal security director at Chicago's O'Hare
International Airport, said the first terminals should be redesigned this
summer.

``We will see which is the best way to do it at O'Hare,'' said Richardson,
who spent three decades in the Navy before joining the security agency.
``What we're looking for is good security and great customer service.''

On the Net:

Transportation Security Administration: http://www.tsa.dot.gov

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