"Security to Get Consolidated Offices at Ala. Airport"

Thursday, October 12, 2006

Security to Get Consolidated Offices at Ala. Airport
By Charles R. McCauley
The Birmingham (AL) News


Transportation Security Administration operations at the Birmingham
International Airport will be consolidated into one location at the airport
beginning Jan. 1.

TSA's offices will move to space under one of the concourses, Mary
Mindingall, the airport's properties and administration director, said
Monday. The federal agency responsible for air travel security currently has
offices behind a vacant ticket counter and in lounge space that Delta Air
Lines had used as a perk for customers.

''We are in the process of developing new space for them,'' Mindingall told
the Birmingham Airport Authority, which authorized Monday a five-year lease
with TSA that becomes effective Jan. 1. The board also gave approval for
Chairman Gaynelle Hendricks to sign a two-month lease that extends the
current pact that ends Oct. 31 by two months to Dec. 31.

After two years, TSA and the airport will have rights to terminate the
contract.

The new space for TSA will be smaller than its combined locations, which
total 4,440 square feet. Mindingall said TSA will have 3,835 square feet.

Mindingall added that TSA will not be in the way of the project the
authority is developing to modernize the terminal.

In September 2002, more than 100 federal employees hired to screen the
airport's passengers and baggage began on-the-job training, a day before the
first anniversary of the terrorist attacks that led to their hirings.

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