"Lines slow as electronics get more-careful scrutiny"

Tuesday, August 12, 2003
 
Airport security tightens 
Lines slow as electronics get more-careful scrutiny 
By Patrick Crowley 
The Cincinnati (OH) Enquirer


HEBRON - It's 7:55 a.m. Monday at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky
International Airport and the baggage security checkpoint line in Delta Air
Lines' Terminal 3 is already several hundred deep. 

A woman dressed in business attire steps off a long escalator but stops
before entering the snaking rope line of passengers waiting to go through a
half-dozen checkpoints. 

She bends over and removes a laptop computer from a satchel and a hand-held
computer from a briefcase, knowing both are more than likely to be checked
by baggage screeners. 

Welcome to what frequent fliers refer to as "Laptop Monday" at the airport,
when a crush of mostly business travelers must endure waits as baggage
screeners increase scrutiny of electronic equipment. 

"It's like this every Monday. I see it when I come in," said Israel Shabtai,
a 51-year-old engineer from Erie, Pa., who travels to Cincinnati and other
cities several times a month. "You get kind of used to it, but the lines
have been moving slower lately. They must be getting tougher on what they
check." 

They are. 

Federal officials concerned that terrorists may try to fashion electronic
devices into bombs have alerted Transportation Security Administration
baggage screeners to more closely check cameras, cell phones, remote control
automobile keys, radios and other electronic devices. 

Last week the Department of Homeland Security warned in an advisory
"al-Qaida may attempt to modify common electronic items carried by air
travelers, such as cameras, for use as weapons in order to circumvent
improved security screening." 

"Most portable electronic equipment is ideal for concealment of explosives,"
the department said in the advisory. "Al-Qaida operatives have shown a
special interest in converting a camera flash attachment into a stun gun." 

Shabtai said in recent weeks the time to move through baggage checks "has
slowed a little." 

"But I'm from Israel," he said. "We've had this there for 20 years. You get
used to it." 

But passengers are complaining about the slow pace of moving through
security, particularly in Cincinnati, where the government cut the airport
security screening force by 26 percent in May. The cuts were part of a 10.7
percent nationwide reduction in screeners. 

A spokesman at Delta's Atlanta headquarters said he could not comment
because the issue involves security measures, a topic the airlines are
referring to the federal government. 

By around 8:15 a.m. Monday the line for baggage checks was at its peak, with
travelers waiting 15 to 20 minutes to be cleared. 

Mark Farella, a 34-year-old information technology consultant from
Clarkston, Mich., was passing through Cincinnati on Monday. He travels with
a laptop computer "and it is always checked," he said. 

"You just know it's going to happen, so you just get to the airport a little
sooner," Farella said. "It can be tricky if you're running late and you have
to change planes. But it's a fact of life if you are going to fly." 

Screening electronic devices won't make lines longer "because we're already
doing this," said Chris Rhatigan, a spokeswoman for the TSA in Washington. 

But David Stempler, president of the Washington-based Air Travelers
Association, said delays were possible because leisure fliers in summer
outnumbered business fliers, who typically breezed through security because
they fly often and knew the screening process. 

"There are lots of people carrying cameras, digital camcorders, CD players
and other electronic devices" who don't realize those items have to be
screened separately, Stempler said. 

To speed up the process, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge wants
passengers to remove cameras, cell phones, computers and other electronic
devices form their carry-on luggage and carrying cases, and place them on
detection-machine conveyor belts before security personnel ask them to. 

That's what Cincinnati resident Mark Christie of GE Financial did recently
with his cell phone when he flew Delta out of the airport. 

"I knew they were going to check it," said Christie, a 28-year-old East
Walnut Hills resident who was at the airport Monday to pick up a colleague.
"So I just got it out and had it ready. The line still moved pretty slowly.
You do what you can to speed it up." 

While in town last week, Delta chairman and CEO Leo Mullin said balancing
customer satisfaction with increasing security is "one of the toughest
issues we have." 

"The (Atlanta airport) situation is terrible, and to a certain extent, you
have the same situation here" in Cincinnati, Mullin said. "We can't control
every aspect of the airport experience the way we used to handle it. 

"Intense security will be part of our life for the next 10 years or perhaps
forever," Mullin said. "So we have to accept that and work with the TSA
extensively. We continue to have intensive discussions about pushing back on
this security issue. We want to minimize the harm to the passenger ... but
we have to remember that the ultimate metric here is to stop terrorism, and
we have to shore up any fundamental vulnerability." 

Veteran traveler Charles Bauer, a 69-year-old accountant from Hamilton,
doesn't like standing in long security lines as he travels frequently on
business or to Florida. 

"There's so much inconsistency from airport to airport," Bauer said. "In
Cincinnati, a roll of (mints) wrapped in foil sets the metal detectors off
in security. In other places, it doesn't. 

"Some places you have to take off your shoes and belt, other places let you
walk right through," he said. 

But Bauer has also adopted an attitude the government and the airlines wish
more fliers would take. 

"I look at it this way," he said. "If all the security prevents some kind of
accident, then I'll spend a few extra minutes in security rather than having
a bunch of people get killed."


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