"First day of new airport screening comes with a few bumps"

Thursday, July 8, 2004

First day of new airport screening comes with a few bumps
By Dan Wascoe
The Minneapolis (MN) Star Tribune

 
Some of Northwest Airlines' most frequent fliers tried the nation's
first biometric security screening for passengers Wednesday at
Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. Not all got what they
bargained for. 

Joe Franko, a south Minneapolis businessman who said he travels every
week, signed up because he figured as a "registered traveler" -- the
government's name for the program -- he wouldn't have to remove his
laptop computer from its case during screening. Wrong.

Franko not only had to unwrap his laptop but also had to remove his
shoes and jacket and pass through the checkpoint metal detector twice
before getting the thumbs up to head for the gate.

"There you go," he said with a resigned shrug toward reporters and
photographers on the other side of security. 

Still, he said he liked the speed and smoothness of the first step:
pressing his index finger on a screen at a 6-foot-high kiosk, where a
computer compared the image with his previously encoded fingerprint. He
said he hoped the system would help reduce the hour-and-a-half waiting
time he often allows for airport security clearance.

Starting June 28, about 2,400 of Northwest's invited customers and crew
members volunteered for the program, many expecting to save time by
avoiding some security screening. Gary Fishman, a Northwest senior vice
president, said the airline's Platinum Elite customers were invited
because their frequent travel would make them more likely to use the
system during the 90-day test period.

Passengers agreed to have their backgrounds checked, and their
fingerprints and iris images stored electronically in return for
becoming part of the system.

By midafternoon Wednesday, nearly six hours after the system made its
debut, 74 passengers had passed through a walkway reserved for them at
the main terminal. The reserved lane will be staffed from 5 a.m. to 8
p.m. daily.

Like every other passenger, they still had to submit to initial
screening at a metal detector and X-ray machine for carry-on items. But
their status as registered travelers exempted them from the random
secondary screening that the federal Transportation Security
Administration (TSA) uses to provide another line of defense against
potential terrorism.

Under a $5 million appropriation from Congress, airports in Los Angeles,
Houston, Boston and Washington, D.C., soon will begin similar 90-day
tests, trying out fingerprint screening, iris comparisons and cards
coded with passengers' personal information.

Carol DiBattiste, the TSA's chief of staff, said her agency "will be
challenging the system" to make "a fair and honest assessment" of its
effectiveness and reliability.

If the program is approved for widespread deployment, it is not clear
who will pay for it. Fishman said that his airline prefers that
passengers pay extra fees and that a Northwest survey found many
passengers willing to do so. DiBattiste said only that the financing
method is under discussion.

Bert Harman, a Twin Cities-area businessman who was among the first to
use the system Wednesday, said he felt strongly enough about increased
waiting times following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that he had
written to members of Congress urging action.

But passengers and airline and government officials said they don't
expect waiting times to shrink much at the Minneapolis-St. Paul
International Airport because the screening system already functions
relatively smoothly there. 

Amy Tourand, a Minneapolis passenger who travels about four times a
month for the Carlson Marketing Group, said the wait at the Orlando
airport is "awful" while Los Angeles is "horrible."


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