"Los Angeles airports gain security funding"

Tuesday, September 2, 2003

L.A. airports gain security funding
GRANT WILL HELP OVERHAUL BAGGAGE SYSTEM
By Jennifer Oldham
The Los Angeles (CA) Times


LOS ANGELES - The Department of Homeland Security is expected to announce
today that it is giving $256 million to Los Angeles' airport agency to help
defray the cost of new baggage systems at Los Angeles and Ontario
international airports.

Los Angeles is one of 10 major commercial airports expected to receive
federal funding this year to help build truck-size explosives-detection
machines into the baggage systems that ferry luggage from ticket counters to
waiting airplanes.

The federal grant represents 75 percent of the estimated $342 million it
will cost to overhaul baggage systems at Los Angeles and Ontario.

The money will allow the city to rip out 1960s-era baggage conveyors at Los
Angeles Airport and install more efficient computer-based systems. It's a
gargantuan task. Officials will replace about three miles of aging belts,
making sure at the same time that about 150,000 bags make it onto the proper
fights each day. Los Angeles handles more luggage than any other U.S.
airport.

The baggage systems that crisscross the lower levels of most of the
airport's nine terminals run at only one speed and were not built to
incorporate machines that inspect baggage for explosives.

``These terminals were not designed for this,'' said Michael DiGirolamo, a
deputy executive director at the airport agency. ``These are very simplistic
systems designed to get bags out to aircraft . . . not to inspect bags.''

The new systems, expected to take four years to design and build, are to
feature computers that will allow operators to control the speed at which
bags enter explosives-detection machines. The airport also plans to build
blast-resistant rooms near belts in case suspicious materials are found in
luggage.

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