"Luggage overload leads to shortcuts in security at OIA"

Tuesday, September 5, 2006

Luggage overload leads to shortcuts in security at OIA
A government-watchdog group is criticizing the TSA's safety checks of
alternative-screening methods.
By Beth Kassab
The Orlando (FL) Sentinel


The checked-luggage security system at Orlando International Airport is so
overloaded at times that security shortcuts are sometimes used and could
become more frequent as the number of checked bags continues to climb.

Checked bags soared by 20 percent after a ban last month on liquids and gels
in carry-on luggage. An alleged plot uncovered in London to blow up
airliners destined for the U.S. with liquid bombs prompted the security
clampdown.

But the effort to tighten security at passenger checkpoints has caused
checked luggage to back up at airports throughout the country. About 1.3
billion checked bags per year are screened, meaning the liquid ban has
resulted in more than a half-million additional bags per day.

In Orlando, which had 34 million passengers last year, the increase has
exacerbated the bottlenecks of checked suitcases that already exist at peak
travel times.

To manage backups, the U.S. Transportation Security Administration, which
oversees aviation security, allows its officers to use approved shortcuts to
move bags along faster. The so-called alternative-screening methods range
across the country from bomb-sniffing dogs to shortened versions of the
procedures for swabbing bags for explosive traces.

A TSA spokesman wouldn't discuss the use of alternative methods, but
security officers interviewed by the Orlando Sentinel said some of the
methods are not uncommon in Orlando.

TSA stands by techniques

Although TSA says its techniques don't compromise security, the practices
have caught the attention of the investigative arm of Congress.

In a recent report, the Government Accountability Office criticized the
agency for not keeping track of how many bags are screened through
alternative methods and for its lack of testing to ensure the methods are
safe.

"TSA's use of these various procedures has involved trade-offs in security
effectiveness," according to the July GAO report titled, "TSA Oversight of
Checked Baggage Screening Procedures Could Be Strengthened."

The most notorious example in recent memory of terrorism through checked
luggage is Pan Am Flight 103, which exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, in
1988, killing 270 people when a bomb in a suitcase detonated.

Since 9-11, though, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has increased
its focus on the security of aircraft cockpits and passenger cabins, where
shoe bombs, liquid explosives and other devices are viewed as the current
threat.

U.S. Rep. James Oberstar, D-Minn., ordered the GAO report and served on the
commission that looked at aviation-safety concerns after the Pan Am
disaster.

"I think we've made enormous progress in the cabin and passenger
checkpoint," Oberstar said. "We haven't done as well as we should in checked
luggage, nor in cargo."

TSA Director Kip Hawley recently acknowledged to USA Today that the increase
in baggage prompted by the liquid ban "could result in some
vulnerabilities."

With the ban to stay for now, security officers at Orlando International
said they are concerned about the volume of bags the Thanksgiving and
Christmas holidays will bring in less than three months.

"There's a tremendous increase in bags. It's added a tremendous amount of
workload, and it's kind of a slow stretch between Labor Day and
Thanksgiving," said one security officer who did not want to be identified
for fear of losing his job. "We really haven't been tested as far as over
volume."

Southwest Airlines spokeswoman Marilee McInnis said the airline has seen an
estimated 25 additional bags per flight since the liquid ban went into
effect Aug. 10.

She said Southwest -- Orlando's largest airline, with more than 2.9 million
departing passengers per year -- leaves the security of those bags to TSA
and isn't concerned by alternative methods.

"We trust them to do their job in whatever way they deem best," McInnis
said.

TSA spokesman Christopher White said the agency follows the policy mandated
by Congress for 100 percent of checked bags to be screened electronically
through an explosive-detection machine or sampled for explosive traces.

Report cites lack of testing

The GAO report, however, specifically called attention to alternative
methods in which those electronic systems are used in "nonstandard ways" and
pointed out that they are untested and less effective than scanning bags
through the explosive-detection machines.

"While TSA has used alternative screening procedures for more than three
years and expects to continue to use them, it has not tested the security
effectiveness of these procedures in an operational environment," the report
said.

TSA allows the alternative methods in situations in which bag backups could
pose a security threat, according to the report. But several security
officers said the motive is more often the need to avoid flight delays and
keep up the "image" of an efficient system.

"The emphasis is on image," said another officer, who also did not want to
be identified for fear of losing his job. "It doesn't look good if you've
got a lot of bags on the floor."

Conveyor to ease congestion

Some relief for the congested system is in sight in Orlando. The airport is
embarking on a $100 million project to build a behind-the-scenes baggage
conveyor-belt system capable of using more sophisticated and faster
explosive-detection machines.

The first phase of that project is scheduled to be completed by the
beginning of 2007 and will allow about 30 percent of the airport's checked
baggage to be handled more efficiently with fewer security officers. A
spokesman for Analogic, a Massachusetts company that develops the system's
software, said the upgraded machines will allow more than 500 bags to be
processed per hour versus the current rate of less than 200.

The first phase of the project will remove the SUV-sized L3 Communications
explosive-detection machines from the lobbies at the ticket counters near
American, Continental and Northwest airlines, among others.

In the short term, though, the checked-luggage onslaught is likely to get
worse before it gets better, said Charles Slepian, chief executive officer
of the New York-based Foreseeable Risk Analysis Center, a firm that
specializes in transportation security.

"We're having a tough time keeping up with what we have," he said.

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