TSA under fire for screening process

Suzanne Struglinski

Friday, Feb. 13, 2004 | 10:58 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Airport security procedures need more flexibility as well as the staff and federal money promised to get the job done, Clark County Aviation Director Randy Walker told a House panel Thursday.

Walker, along with several members of Congress and other airport officials, criticized the Transportation Security Administration's passenger and baggage screening process at a three-hour House Aviation Subcommittee hearing. Walker testified at the request of subcommittee members Reps. Jon Porter, R-Nev., and Shelley Berkley, D-Nev.

"The lines are back, that's the problem we have," Walker said.

Berkley, Porter and Walker brought the recent increase in wait times, sometimes up to four hours at McCarran, to Tom Blank, TSA's assistant administrator for transportation security policy. The Nevadans emphasized that problems at the airport or anything that stops people from coming to Las Vegas translates into a direct effect on the area's economy.

Berkley held up a memo handed out at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last month that advised attendees that waits could be up to four hours long. She said such waits would discourage other conventions and even regular tourists from flying to Nevada.

"They will think twice about visiting Las Vegas for our wholesome family entertainment," Berkley said.

Walker said the airports has analyzed why the long lines have returned, especially after they became "tolerable" in 2002. A more constant approach in telling passengers what they need to do would help, he said.

"One issue we have learned is that in spite of all the public attention, even seasoned travelers are often not prepared upon arrival at the magnetometer and X-ray screening positions," Walker said. "We learned that the passengers are not getting prepared for the screening process as they should because they are confused as to the rules."

He said since rules vary from airport to airport on whether passengers take off their shoes, need their identification and a boarding pass checked or how to use bins to place their belongings on the conveyor belt, "many passengers wait until they are told what to do before making the final preparations to enter the screening process."

This may just add a few seconds to a passenger's trip through security, but a few seconds multiplied by thousands up people add up, Walker said.

McCarran has a $600,000 contract to have "front-loaders," or employees manning the security lines just before they reach the checkpoint, to get everything in order.

He said the TSA also needs to provide the money required for equipment for baggage screening, to remove employment caps on the overall agency to get more people working the lines and to solve the hiring problems.

"The system as it is now will discourage people from flying," Walker said.

Blank said the TSA will work to shorten the hiring process for the federal screeners and agreed with Berkley that the airports could benefit from some flexibility in security procedures but would not specify where.

"The goal is to improve security and to improve customer convenience. You shouldn't have to sacrifice one for the other," Berkley said after the hearing.

The aviation subcommittee will take the information from the hearing to the full Transportation Committee to make recommendations for bills that could "profoundly help not only our airport but aviation in general throughout the U.S.," Berkley said.