"Dallas/Fort Worth Airport to Get $26 Million to Improve Baggage Screening"

Thursday, July 31, 2003

Dallas/Fort Worth Airport to Get $26 Million to Improve Baggage Screening
The Fort Worth (TX) Star-Telegram


WASHINGTON--Dallas/Fort Worth Airport is expected to receive $26 million
from the Federal Aviation Administration to improve baggage screening.

The funding is the second major federal grant that will relieve airport
officials from having to borrow more money to reconfigure the airport to
accommodate the sport utility vehicle-size screening machines.

"This is really great news for our airport," said U.S. Rep. Kay Granger,
R-Fort Worth. "This money helps ensure that D/FW Airport is well-prepared
for the security issues we face today and tomorrow."

The grant is from the FAA's Airport Improvement Program and will be used to
fully automate baggage screening. D/FW will provide 25 percent matching
money.

The airport this month also received $104 million from the Transportation
Security Administration for its baggage-screening program.

The grants will help D/FW pay for the program after it secured a one-year
waiver from last year's Dec. 31 deadline for all airports to have baggage
screening in place.

"I worked so hard to move the deadline so we would do it right," Granger
said. "This is doing it right. They should be able to make the deadline."

Since February, D/FW officials have been negotiating with several federal
agencies, primarily the TSA, for money to build a series of
behind-the-scenes conveyor belts that pass bags through bomb-detection
machines.

"Our next step is to go to the variable rate bond market in August," Said
Jeff Fegan, D/FW's chief executive officer. "We'll be borrowing $111
million. We will then use that, in addition to the discretionary grant we
got here, and the first year of TSA reimbursement money, to build the
project."

Meanwhile, it is already too late for D/FW to meet the year-end deadline set
by Congress for having a permanent baggage-screening system in place.
Construction has already begun by prime contractor DFWIA and will stretch
into next year. Fegan said he wasn't sure how long the project will take.

D/FW handles 55,000 bags a day.


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