"At BWI, a Screen Test: Airport Security Directors Prepare To Take Reins From Private Guards"

Thursday, April 4, 2002

At BWI, a Screen Test
Airport Security Directors Prepare To Take Reins From Private Guards
By Sara Kehaulani Goo
The Washington (DC) Post


The windowless room is warm. Several men, including former Los Angeles
police chief Willie Williams, have removed their blazers and sit hunched
over folding tables with notepads in front of them. At the front of the
room, in bold letters, a screen reads "Power to Secure, Passion to Serve."

This training room in the bowels of Baltimore-Washington International
Airport is ground zero for the nation's deployment of federal officials who
will assume direct responsibility for security at individual airports in the
coming months.

Yesterday, five of eight newly appointed federal airport security directors,
most of whom had long careers in the U.S. Secret Service, military or law
enforcement, attended orientation classes and surveyed BWI's model
checkpoint to learn more about their new roles as replacements for
private-sector security.

Since late February, consultants and officials at the Transportation
Security Administration, the new federal agency charged with overhauling
airport security, have used BWI's Concourse C security checkpoint to test
screening methods they hope to copy by November at each of the nation's 429
airports.

"It's analogous to teaching an elephant how to dance," said Kurt J. Krause,
a Marriott International Inc. executive on loan to the TSA, who was teaching
the officials about customer service. "This change is going to be
difficult."

After the Sept. 11 hijackings, Congress approved legislation requiring the
federal government to take over airport security this year. Among the
gargantuan tasks mandated: more closely inspecting checked luggage for
explosives and evaluating and buying new security technology equipment. The
TSA must hire tens of thousands of federal security screeners -- up to
60,000, perhaps -- by Nov. 19. Federal screeners, complete with new federal
uniforms, will replace the current workforce of private contractors,
although many current screeners will apply for the federal jobs.

Mot all current screeners will keep their jobs, because they must meet
language, education and U.S. citizenship requirements.

During yesterday's tour at BWI, the new directors said they have a lot to
learn and they are just finding their way around the airports to which they
are assigned. (Anthony Zotto, a former Secret Service agent appointed to
oversee Reagan National Airport, for example, has yet to get an office and a
desk.)

The directors also explained that they might have to reconfigure the layout
of security checkpoints at their assigned airports to meet the TSA's goal of
reducing long lines to waits of 10 minutes or less. More urgent, they said,
is the task of allaying the fears of current security screeners worried
about losing their jobs.

"We're prepared to talk to employees, to make sure they understand they
aren't going to be on the street," said Williams, a federal security
director assigned to Atlanta's airport. Williams, who started March 11,
already is planning to help set up some computers with Internet access at
the airport, so security screeners can apply for federal jobs online.

"We're talking to them about the benefits of being a federal screener and
the opportunity to be promoted. We're trying to make it as friendly in
transition" as possible, he said.

In addition to BWI, Atlanta and National, federal security directors will be
stationed at San Diego International, Chicago's O'Hare International, Mobile
(Ala.) Regional Airport, Phoenix Sky Harbor International and Denver
International. The TSA said that eventually every airport will have one,
although some directors will oversee more than one airport. The total number
of directors has not been set.

Despite the emphasis on security, the new directors spent much of yesterday
morning learning how to incorporate customer service at the airports,
something the TSA says is just as important.

Krause, the Marriott executive who specializes in branding, suggested the
TSA's security screening should be thought of as a brand that will convey
professionalism and customer service to passengers, whom he occasionally
referred to as "customers" or "guests."

Krause is one of several corporate executives on loan to the TSA who serve
as consultants. Walt Disney Co., Fluor Corp., Intel Corp., Solectron Corp.,
FedEx Corp., Cisco Systems Inc. are providing executives, too.

"The impact of this experience [through the checkpoint] may determine
whether a passenger will return to air travel," Krause said. "It's up to
this group to get that started and implemented."

During orientation, Krause and TSA officials said very little about how
security itself would improve. But the TSA officials made the case that,
with a better-organized security checkpoint and better-trained screeners
working in teams result in better security.

In the six weeks the TSA has been running the BWI test site, security
screeners and supervisors have established more control over passengers and
caught several large knives and a gun, resulting in several arrests, said
Hans Miller, a TSA official at the BWI test site.

In addition, the checkpoint is processing 700 passengers per hour compared
with 500 passengers an hour before the new methods were introduced. In
passenger surveys passed out by the airlines, 85 percent of passengers gave
the agency a high rating for customer service, compared with 73 percent
before the TSA took over the test site. More passengers are writing in
favorable comments on the surveys, Miller said.

"Our favorite quote," he added, came when "someone said 'This is just like
Disneyland' " -- a compliment on the fast-moving lines.

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