"Hated lines building up again at BWI security checkpoints"

Tuesday, August 5, 2003

Hated lines building up again at BWI security checkpoints
Cuts in screening staff, rise in vacationers blamed 
By Rona Kobell
The Baltimore (MD) Sun


Cuts in federal screeners and an influx of summer travelers have brought
long security lines back to Baltimore-Washington International Airport,
praised just a year ago as a model for moving passengers smoothly through
security.

>From the airport's Burger King to its souvenir shops, irritated passengers
in recent weeks have waited in bottlenecks to pass through BWI's security
checkpoint. The lines resemble those seen shortly after the Sept. 11
attacks, when the airport hired Groucho Marx impersonators and jugglers to
entertain weary passengers.
 
It's a big change from the progress made since February, when the
Transportation Security Administration began taking over screening from
private companies and made BWI its testing ground for developing the best
screening practices.

For much of 2002 and the first half of this year, as other airports
struggled with long lines, BWI passengers sailed through security.

BWI officials say that most passengers still can get through the lines in 30
minutes but acknowledge that the perception of a long wait -- and a possible
missed flight -- imperils BWI's reputation as a friendly, get-in-
and-get-out airport and could ultimately hurt business.

"Perception counts, absolutely, and it hurts us to look at it," said Capt.
Bert Seither, an assistant chief pilot with Southwest Airlines, who said the
lines have caused flight delays. "It does not look good."

The line growth coincides with TSA cutbacks.

In April, the agency announced a hiring freeze and a plan to cut 6,000
positions from its screener work force of 55,600 by Sept. 30.

BWI is authorized to hire 717 screeners, and recently it also had a mobile
screening team helping the airport ramp up. Now, the team has moved on to
other airports and the number of screeners has dropped from more than 700 to
620.

BWI loses an average of 11 screeners each pay period -- some to other TSA
jobs and others to work outside the agency, said J. Paul Malandrino Jr., the
TSA's federal security director at BWI. During the hiring freeze, TSA
couldn't fill the vacant positions.

Malandrino said the hiring freeze has been lifted at certain airports,
including BWI, and the airport expects to hire about 200 part-time screeners
this month. His office has received more than 1,000 applications.

While the new hires should alleviate the lines, which vary depending on time
of day, he said passengers need to be patient: "You just can't work people
without giving them a lunch break."

Malandrino, a retired Air Force pilot, spends one night a week at BWI doling
out glazed doughnuts and pep talks to the screeners.

"We're all concerned about the wait times," he said. "But I will say that
TSA has stepped up to the plate."

David Stempler, president of the Air Travelers Association, an advocacy
group for air travel, concurred: "The thing we have to understand is that
they inherited a very weak system, and they were called on to fix it
overnight."

Not all passengers agree.

One recent Sunday, construction executive Rudy Kolich waited in line for an
hour to catch his Southwest Airlines flight back to Phoenix. Kolich figured
his wife, who was returning home the next day on Amer ica West Airlines,
would have a shorter wait because Mondays are generally light.

But Marsha Kolich arrived 2 1/2 hours early and nearly missed her flight
because of the lines. The Kolichs, former Annapolis residents who return to
the Washington area at least once a month, said they were shocked at what
appeared to be chaos.

"It was absolutely 10 times worse than any previous experience we're had
flying out of BWI in the last 13 years," Marsha Kolich said.

When she returned to her job in business development at the Arizona
Department of Commerce, she told her co-workers to avoid BWI and instead fly
into Washington's Reagan National and Dulles International airports when
visiting the capital on business.

Officials with the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, which manages
Reagan and Dulles, say neither airport has had major lines recently.

"We do have peak periods where there are lines, but they're moving along
fairly well," said authority spokeswoman Tara Hamilton.

At Pittsburgh International Airport, the lines have been relatively short
this summer, said airport spokeswoman JoAnn Jenny. But they've only lost
about 24 screeners out of the more than 400 working at the airport. Next
month, she pre dicts, Pittsburgh will feel the cuts as TSA downsizes more.

In a way, BWI's lines are an unfortunate byproduct of Southwest Airlines'
success. The airline, which is BWI's largest carrier, offers 156 flights a
day, many of them last-minute bargains that make flying as affordable as
driving. Southwest's success is contributing to lines at Chicago's Midway
airport.

Southwest spokeswoman Christine Turneabe-Connelly called the lines
"unacceptable" and said that even rock-bottom fares won't return people to
the skies for short hops if they think flying is a hassle.

"We're not just competing with the airlines, we're competing with the
automobile," she said. "We're very concerned, be cause we know the advantage
of saving time."

BWI Executive Director Paul Wiedefeld said the lines show that business is
growing and people are flying again. On July 3, more than 73,000 passengers
flew out of the airport -- a figure rivaled in the past year only by traffic
on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.

Wiedefeld already has increased staff in the terminal and soon will be
posting signs indicating wait times.

TSA officials sent an urgent memo last week to all airlines and airport
security managers, warning of new threats to hijack commercial airlines. But
TSA spokeswoman Chris Rhatigan said that warning has no bearing on lines at
BWI. She attributes the lines to cutbacks at TSA, as well as to vacation
travelers who might not be familiar with security procedures.

"There are four legs on this stool -- the TSA, the airports, the airlines
and the passengers -- and they're all equally important," she said.

As he checked identification in front of a long line last week, security
worker Stanley Henry agreed. He said that business customers who kept the
airport humming for much of the spring knew to keep their boarding passes
and identification out and their pockets free of change when they
approached.

Not so the leisure travelers, who fumble for their documents despite
reminders on TV screens to keep boarding passes and picture IDs handy.

"I see signs saying, 'Baltimore, the City that Reads,' but people here don't
read," Henry said. "If people would cooperate, and keep things ready, then
the waiting time would be reduced."

The airport is also in the midst of a $1.8 billion expansion, so
occasionally sections of the terminal road become backed up. To make sure
passengers make their flights, BWI officials recommend arriving at least 90
minutes early and booking flights at off-peak times.

But as Diane Dotterweich of Timonium learned, heeding that advice is no
guarantee. Last week, she and her husband had planned to take a Friday
morning flight to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., but switched to a 12:55 p.m. flight
Thursday because she assumed the lines would be shorter. < "This is crazy,"
she said as she slid into the line that had already reached beyond the
Burger King. "Last year, we flew three times, and it was walk in, walk out."
The Dotterweiches, who arrived 90 minutes early, waited in line more than a
half-hour.

A few passengers back, University of New Hampshire professor Michael Skibbie
cut it a little closer. It was nearly noon, and he didn't want to miss his
12:35 p.m. flight to Manchester.

"You get a little nervous," he said, "but I've seen people pulled out of
line. And that seems like a sensible way to handle the congestion."

He had barely finished his sentence when a harried Southwest employee called
for anyone with a flight before 12:40. With that, Skibbie scurried to the
checkpoint, leaving the line behind.


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