Screen test: Officials at McCarran concerned about staffing for security checkpoints

Jace Radke

Wednesday, April 28, 2004 | 11:03 a.m.

A revamped layout that will give McCarran International Airport seven more security checkpoints for its C and D gates is scheduled to be completed in two months, but an additional 300 screeners needed to staff the expansion have yet to be hired.

Clark County Deputy Director of Aviation Rosemary Vassiliadis said that the airport has been assured by Transportation Security Administration officials that the additional screeners will be available. But a national cap of 45,000 TSA screeners may make it difficult for the airport to staff the new positions.

"There is concern, but we've had no indication that we won't be getting the screeners," Vassiliadis said. "Still, we are getting down to what would seem to be a critical time frame."

Currently McCarran has more than 800 TSA screeners, and is authorized for 900 to operate the 25 security checkpoints and handle explosives screening for all baggage at the airport.

Jim Blair, TSA security director at McCarran, said the employee cap could be an issue when it comes to hiring the additional people needed for the new checkpoints that will bring the total number of checkpoints at the airport to 32.

If McCarran doesn't get the new screeners, Blair hopes to be able to juggle staff to open as many gates as possible during peak travel times when lines build up at the C and D Gates.

"Our congressional delegation is involved in the process, and has queried TSA headquarters to ensure that we get the screeners," he said.

A spokeswoman for Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said that Ensign and Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., have sent a letter to acting TSA administrator David Stone, who has verbally committed that the screeners will be available.

Vassiliadis said that the airport made sure to get a commitment from the TSA that screeners could be added before starting work on the $10 million expansion project that will result in 19,000 additional square feet for checkpoints.

"We know we need the checkpoints to process passengers," Vassiliadis said, noting that a third D-Gate wing is scheduled to open in November adding 10 gates to the airport. "We've been lucky in the past in that we've been real successful in getting our needs approved."

McCarran faces peak travel times when hundreds of passengers arrive during a given time period, clogging walkways and causing security lines that can take hours to maneuver through.

Friday afternoon lines for the C and D Gates stretched back more than 50 feet along the second floor mezzanine above baggage claim.

Randy Pehling was catching a flight home to Minnesota Friday after spending his vacation riding his motorcycle in and around Laughlin.

"I have friends that have waited as long as three hours here," said Pehling, who had his motorcycle trucked out to Laughlin, while he took a plane. "This is my first time through here and the lines are longer than I've seen anywhere else.

"Miami and Atlanta (airports) are nothing compared to this."

Pehling waited in line for about 30 minutes Friday, a vast improvement over the four-hour delays that were becoming commonplace earlier this year. During the Consumer Electronics Show, Super Bowl weekend and the Valentine's Day-Presidents Day weekend, the waits ballooned to levels not seen since the weeks following Sept. 11, 2001.

In response the TSA made some changes in the screening at the behest of the airport and the Nevada congressional delegation that have brought back more reasonable waits.

Another man in line Friday, who declined to give his name, but said he was flying to Pittsburgh, said that he was glad to see construction going on to build more checkpoint lanes.

"I lost a lot of money in Las Vegas this week," the man said as he shuffled forward in line. "Maybe they can use it to help get this construction done faster."

McCarran has already expedited the construction on the expansion resulting in the scheduled opening at the end of June instead of the original August completion date.

McCarran officials have long cited the peak-and-valley nature of the rate of the airport's travelers, and the fact that about 92 percent of the airport's 36 million annual passengers pass through screening because they are starting or ending a flight at McCarran, as factors in creating longer waits.

Blair said he hopes to use the additional checkpoints to shorten waits during peak times.

"We don't need seven extra lanes 20 hours a day, six days a week," Blair said. "We may only need to open them all on a peak day for a shift, and then when it slows down we can adjust."

Flexibility is key, Blair said, because the majority of his workers are already putting in extra hours. Currently all of the full-time screeners at McCarran are working 50-hour weeks, Blair said.

Blair could save some additional screener hours beginning as early as July when three of the six major pieces of the airport's automated inline baggage screening system are slated to become operational. The system will allow screeners to monitor bags as they move through minivan-sized explosive detection system (EDS) machines on conveyor belts.

The inline system will eliminate the need for additional screeners to haul luggage to and from the EDS machines from the ticket counter.

"It will go back to how ticketing looked before Sept. 11," Blair said. "We'll be able to get the EDS machines out of ticketing, and the security will become more transparent for the passengers."

The entire inline system is scheduled to be in place by early next year, Blair said.