Relief expected for airport’s long lines

Suzanne Struglinski and Jace Radke

Thursday, Feb. 19, 2004 | 12:13 p.m.

Long security lines at McCarran International Airport will get some relief from new procedures the Transportation Security Administration has agreed to put in place.

Sens. John Ensign, R-Nev., and Harry Reid, D-Nev., spoke with TSA acting Administrator David Stone and Jim Blair, who heads TSA operations at the airport, in the past week about the recent three- to four-hour waits for airline passengers to get through security.

Nevada's congressional delegation had recently sent a letter to Stone about the waits, asking him to examine flexibility in the security rules as well as the effectiveness of various screening rules and procedures.

Fliers experienced the long waits at McCarran last month after the Consumer Electronics Show, Super Bowl weekend and most recently the Valentine's Day-President's Day weekend.

Sen. Harry Reid said this morning that security procedures were at fault.

"Something is being done about the security as we speak, and this weekend the lines will not be as long," he said.

The senators said they received assurances that additional TSA staffing will be made available to McCarran for six new passenger screening checkpoints set to open by the end of the summer. Those new screening stations would give McCarran a total of 31 checkpoints.

In the meantime though, "certain security measures will be streamlined during peak hours so that travelers make it through security much faster," Ensign spokesman Jack Finn said. "We are not releasing details of those measures for security reasons."

Sundays and Mondays have always been peak travel times at the airport, and lines that take an hour to get through are common when several flights are leaving Las Vegas over the same time period, airport officials said.

But concerns have been raised about the longer lines that have materialized since the first of the year. Clark County Aviation Director Randy Walker expressed those worries last week as he testified at a House Aviation subcommittee hearing.

Walker, Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., and Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., used the hearing to detail McCarran's problems to Tom Blank, TSA's assistant administrator for transportation security policy.

Walker testified that a security review last month showed 2.8 people were screened per minute in each lane at McCarran, fewer than the 3.5 people per minute rate the airport usually sees.

Following the recent high terror alert level that lasted from Dec. 21 through Jan. 9, TSA officials said that some additional security measures would remain at McCarran.

Blair, of McCarran's TSA office, said the delays were not because of the heightened alert, and that the local office was working on the problem.

"We're looking at ways to enhance our procedures based on the large numbers of passengers that we are seeing," he said.

Walker said McCarran is one of the first major airports to see traveler traffic almost equal to those before the Sept. 11 terrorist attack. "We're at about 98 percent, almost to 100 percent," he said.

But the return of passengers also brought longer waits to go through security checkpoints than before, even though more security lanes have been added, he said.

The unique nature of McCarran and Las Vegas can create the large backups when security checkpoints slow down.

About 92 percent of the airport's 36 million annual passengers are coming to or leaving Las Vegas, not simply catching a connecting flight. This means that a higher percentage of passengers at McCarran go through security checkpoints, making for longer lines, especially on Sundays and Mondays when thousands of tourists are leaving town.

"Sen. Ensign says he is very confident that Stone, Blair, and airport director Randy Walker are responding to the concerns, implementing strong measures and not compromising safety," Finn said.