"LAX Resigned to Long Lines, Despite Cloud of Terrorism"

Saturday, March 19, 2005

Checkpoint Throughput Not Just a Customer Service Issue
LAX Resigned to Long Lines, Despite Cloud of Terrorism
Suggestions in a Rand security study are too costly to implement any time
soon, officials say.
By Jennifer Oldham
The Los Angeles (CA) Times


Despite warnings by security experts that long lines at Los Angeles
International Airport are vulnerable to a terrorist attack, airport
officials have concluded that the staff cannot be added to significantly
shorten queues in the next few years.

Rand Corp. recommended last fall that airlines and federal officials hire
more people to speed travelers from sidewalks and terminal lobbies into the
more secure gate areas as the quickest and cheapest way to protect LAX
passengers.
 
But in documents obtained by The Times, the airport's top official advised
the City Council that a third more airline workers and screeners would be
needed - an increase that's not feasible. And even if cash-strapped airlines
could hire additional staff, there wouldn't be enough ticket counter space
for them, airport officials said.

But Rand insisted that the urgency of reducing lines at the world's
fifth-busiest airport remained.

"It's still the recommended thing to do," said Donald Stevens, a senior
engineer at Rand and lead author of the Santa Monica-based research
institute's September study. 

Long lines at airports are "the single greatest vulnerability that we have
in the domestic U.S. at the moment," said aviation consultant Billie
Vincent, a former Federal Aviation Administration security chief.

The General Accounting Office released a report this week that said
heightened screening procedures and truck-sized explosives-detection
machines in airport lobbies - added after 9/11 - had created crowds that put
passengers at risk. 

"In the '70s, gangs in Europe entered airports and machine-gunned and killed
people," said Stephen Van Beek, policy director for Airports Council
International-North America. "Terrorists know if they did that today, it
would be highly publicized."

The risk is acute at LAX, considered the state's top terrorist target. 

Lines will decrease about 50% at LAX by 2008, airport officials say, after
installation of a new $400-million luggage system that will allow the
screening machines to be moved out of the terminal lobbies. Los Angeles
International is one of the few airports to receive federal funding for such
a project.

LAX officials said that although they didn't plan to implement some of
Rand's suggestions, dealing with the airport lines remained a top priority. 

"We don't disagree with what Rand said at all," said Kim Day, executive
director of Los Angeles World Airports, which runs the city's airports.
"While we are not implementing exactly what they recommended, thanks to Rand
we are focused on a direction that will indeed make this airport more safe
and secure."

Mayor James K. Hahn called for the Rand study last spring after the City
Council threatened to hire a firm to conduct a security analysis of his
$11-billion modernization plan for LAX. 

Rand stands by its recommendation to reduce crowding outside the terminals
and in the lobbies. 

"Even if you use their numbers, it still comes out as the top
recommendation," Stevens said. 

The wide-ranging report - which considered the potential casualties from car
bombs, mortars, snipers and surface-to-air missiles - was the first public
review of the airport's vulnerabilities and the most cost-effective ways to
fix them.

It found that passengers on sidewalks and in lobbies were at risk from car
and luggage bombs. Rand urged the city to reduce crowds and to establish
permanent checkpoints at LAX entrances to search vehicles for bombs.

The City Council asked airport officials to report how they planned to
decrease lines and screen vehicles. In response, the airport agency quietly
sent two letters to members of the council's Commerce, Energy and Natural
Resources Committee earlier this year.

Rand and some council members were unaware that the letters existed until
informed by The Times earlier this week. In a five-page letter on airport
crowds, LAX officials relied on statistics from an analysis by Leigh Fisher
Associates, an airport queue specialist that conducted computer simulations
of lines in each of the facility's nine terminals. 

The study found that during peak periods, an increase of 25% to 75% in
airline ticket agents would be required, depending on the terminal, to
reduce lines to a wait of one minute - a level consultants considered
optimal to reduce casualties in an attack. Average waits at ticket counters
are now about 40 minutes during peak travel times.

Rand said that only 5% more airline employees were necessary to reduce lines
to a target waiting time of five to seven minutes. 

The Leigh Fisher study also concluded that the U.S. Transportation Security
Administration would need 45% more baggage screeners and 25% more checkpoint
screeners to reduce line waits to a minute. Wait times at screening
checkpoints can stretch to an hour during busy periods. 

Rand recommended adding lanes at security checkpoints, but did not specify
how many more screeners would be needed.

Airport officials said the difference between their conclusion and Rand's
occurred because the think tank didn't factor in the terminal layouts and
frequency of passenger arrivals.

But Rand's Stevens suggested that, rather than conducting computer
simulations, airport officials should add a few more people and run some
tests to see how much they reduce lines. He also said a one-minute wait was
an unrealistic goal. 

Rand and the airport agency, which have spent months trying to negotiate an
ongoing contract, say they hope to work on the problem together this spring.


The airport wants to reduce lines in the short term by working with the
airlines to install more self-service kiosks that would let passengers
obtain boarding passes themselves. A recent study showed that about 23% of
passengers checking in at LAX last year used the kiosks. 

Airport officials are also building more screening lanes and plan to
continue a program to bus arriving passengers to less crowded terminals to
check in. 

As for Rand's call for permanent checkpoints at airport entrances to screen
vehicles for bombs, airport agency chief Day said in a letter to council
members that it would cost up to $8 million to build a such a checkpoint
with 12 lanes and $39.5 million a year to operate it. 

Such a facility would still not be big enough to efficiently screen cars
unless screening times were kept below 10 seconds per vehicle, and it would
gridlock streets around the airport, she wrote, causing passengers to miss
flights. 

Day concluded that "implementation of 100% vehicular screening cannot be
accomplished in either the near term or for low cost."

Rand said that it did not ask the airport to screen every vehicle and that
it believes devices such as vehicle scales can be used to reduce screening
times. Airport officials say they have asked Rand to advise them about
technology that could be used at checkpoints.

The airport agency is designing a permanent 12-lane vehicle checkpoint, but
won't proceed with construction until the city decides whether it will build
a controversial check-in center near the San Diego Freeway. That proposed
facility is part of Hahn's LAX plan and requires further study and council
approval. 

Airport officials note that they have already spent $141 million since 9/11
to fortify LAX. Ongoing projects include a $57-million reinforcement of
perimeter fencing and a $42-million effort to expand a camera surveillance
system. 

Rand researchers also noted that the airport was the only one of the
country's 429 commercial facilities to approach it and ask for a public
study of its security problems.

"Yeah, we may find LAX vulnerable," Rand's Stevens said. "But at least
they're forward-leaning. They're doing things there - they're trying to fix
that perimeter fence. You look at the perimeter fence around San Francisco
and say, 'Sheesh.' "


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