"Dallas-Fort Worth airport now screening all passenger bags"

Wednesday, August 11, 2004

Dallas-Fort Worth airport now screening all passenger bags
The Associated Press


GRAPEVINE, Texas (AP) - Some 19 months after Congress' original mandate,
all passenger luggage at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport now
goes through bomb-detection machines. 

By May, all bags were being screened with the machines in Terminals A
and C. Elsewhere, a combination of machines, bomb-sniffing dogs and
matching bags to passengers was still being used - the same makeshift
approach used four months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. 

In late July, extra machines were added to the ticket lobbies in
Terminals B and E, said Andrea McCauley, a spokeswoman for the
Transportation Security Administration. 

For now, the airport lobbies may be a bit cramped, but passengers can be
confident that every piece of baggage is now being electronically
screened, officials said. 

"This was a totally cooperative effort between the air carriers, the TSA
and DFW (airport), and that's what real airport security is all about,"
Jim Crites, DFW's executive vice president of operations, told the Fort
Worth Star-Telegram for a story in Wednesday editions. 

The airport also is building a giant underground baggage screening and
handling system, expected to be operational this winter. The inline
system aims to make baggage handling safer, quicker and out of sight.


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