McCarran International Airport Cures Also Have To Wait

Airport Cures Also Have To Wait
GamblingMagazine.com

February 18, 2004

 
On Monday, a sea of frustrated travelers unwittingly
discovered a new contender for life's least-wanted
crown: trying to escape Las Vegas after a busy
weekend. 


Thanks in large part to an exodus of visitors leaving
town on the heels of two 30,000-plus attendee
conventions, Valentine's Day getaways and the
Presidents Day holiday, security checkpoint lines
snaked from one end of McCarran International Airport
to another. Many travelers said they'd waited more
than two hours to pass through metal-detector
stations, and worries over missed connections were
outnumbered only by passengers' frequent compla 


Recent backups such as Monday's at McCarran
International Airport are "unacceptable" but present a
tough challenge, the airport's chief executive said
Tuesday. 


And until a solution is found, local air travelers
will at times face more frustration, missed flights,
and most-worrisome of all, increased security risks,
Clark County Aviation Director Randy Walker said. 


Since the beginning of 2004, peak-period delays at
McCarran's 25 security checkpoint lanes have jumped
from about one hour last year to more than two, three
or four hours, according to recent passenger reports.
The problem arose again Monday, when many travelers
waited at checkpoints for more than two hours before
they could depart following a holiday weekend. 


Walker said officials at McCarran have been caught off
guard by this year's frequent delays. Though they're
exploring several potential solutions, an answer won't
come quickly. 


"We're still trying to figure out why in the heck the
lines ballooned out the way they did," Walker said.
"You can't snap your fingers and have these things
(resolved) overnight." 


Airport officials last year started working to add
more lanes at McCarran, but even that may not be
enough, Walker said. That's because the recent
trouble's most obvious cause -- increased passenger
counts -- does not fully explain the continuing
problems. 


Instead, Walker said some of the blame may be traced
to Transportation Security Administration workers. 


Airport officials routinely study how many passengers
pass through each security lane using a per-minute
average based on information pulled at various periods
in a day, Walker said. In January 2003, federal
screeners at McCarran processed an average of 3.5
travelers per minute; last month, airport surveys
showed an average of 2.8 passengers per minute. 


Though McCarran's monthly passenger count likely
improved slightly from January 2003 (official numbers
for last month have not been released), Walker said
the added traffic volume was not significant enough to
warrant such a falloff in screening times, especially
considering the airport's addition of 13 new security
lanes since Sept. 11, 2001. 


"At the maximum we've seen an 8 percent increase in
traffic but our lane capacity increased by 13.6
percent," Walker said. "With 100 percent of the lanes
being manned, there's something different than more
passengers." 


Walker said "it could be something" at the checkpoints
that's delaying travelers. 


"We can't control what happens once a person hits the
magnetometer; that's totally out of our control and is
purely the federal government, TSA's, responsibility,"
Walker said. "We can suggest, we can complain, but the
bottom line is we have no control over what happens in
that process." 


Jim Blair, who oversees TSA's operations at McCarran,
said Tuesday his staff is overworked but disputed
claims his workers played a major role in the recent
delays. 


"We met today and looked at video and the throughput
was 3.9 passengers per minute," Blair said. "Sure, our
people are tired and we need (added) staff, but these
people are working hard and are dedicated to the task
at hand." 


Walker added he supports Blair's recent call for up to
150 more local workers. He said many workers at
McCarran routinely work 50-hour weeks and believes
fatigue could be contributing to slowdowns. Even more
workers will be needed once the six new gates open
this fall. 


"The obvious and best solution is to have more lanes
for people to be processed through and hope that TSA
will staff them, but all that takes time," Walker
said. "We already were doing that with a plan in mind,
but unfortunately these (recent delays) put a dent in
the plan." 


In addition to creating passenger inconvenience,
Walker said, he's also concerned that security delays
are creating bottlenecks that could pose new and
significant risks to air travelers. 


"Aren't you creating another security problem by
jamming 3,000 people, packed liked sardines, in front
of the checkpoint?" Walker asked. "It doesn't do you
much good to take care of one security issue and
create another one on top of it. There needs to be a
balance ... and we've asked (TSA to) take a look at
that." 


Traveler Harrison Chastang, who missed a Monday flight
home to San Francisco because of the delays, said by
phone the massive crowds offered a "potential for
chaos" should a panic result among those in line. And
even without any abnormal incidents, he said the
delays would deter him from visiting Las Vegas again
soon. 


"I think people like me who never miss an opportunity
to visit Las Vegas will think twice if security delays
cause passengers to miss flights and to spend more
time than expected in Las Vegas," he said in an e-mail
to various Las Vegas officials and the Review-Journal.



The obvious solution is the addition of more gates,
Walker said. The county is adding second-level floor
space at McCarran that will add at least six more
security lanes to its existing C- and D-gates
checkpoints, but that project isn't slated to conclude
until about Oct. 1. 


Walker said construction planners are now looking at
ways to speed up that project, perhaps by as much as
six weeks, in addition to potentially placing more
gates in as-yet-undetermined sites within the airport.



"We're doing everything we can in terms of
configuration (but) we've pretty much squeezed
everything we can in," Walker said. 


McCarran officials are also studying whether airline
schedules have been altered to bring more travelers to
the airport at once rather than spread out through the
day, Walker said. So far, that doesn't seem to be the
case. Airport workers are also striving to ready
passengers to more quickly pass through checkpoints by
asking them to reduce the number of items they carry
that need to be screened.
 

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