Something to read while you’re stripping for airport security

Richard N. Velotta, Las Vegas Sun

Friday, Jan. 19, 2007 | 6:55 a.m.

As if there's not already enough advertising competing for attention at McCarran International Airport, the feds are thinking about selling ads where they can't be missed by the flying public - in those plastic bins that carry stuff through the X-ray security machines.

The Transportation Security Administration is trying the idea at three airports in Tennessee and at Los Angeles International Airport. For advertisers, it's a chance to reach a captive audience that has the disposable income to fly.

Under the TSA's pilot program, advertisers provide the bins, the tables on which passengers organize their belongings to pass through the scanners and carts to move bins around. Airports get a cut of the ad revenue and the TSA gets a steady supply of bins, which have to be replaced every three months.

Randy Walker, Clark County Aviation director, says he hasn't decided whether McCarran's bins will become mini-billboards if the TSA deems the ad project a success.

Walker is receptive to new revenue sources at McCarran, but he knows most of the demand is to grab the attention of arriving passengers, not the ones who are leaving. That's why the video screens run ads nonstop for the likes of Blue Man Group, Penn & Teller and Cirque du Soleil.

But what if bin advertising does catch on? Are there candidates out there for the bottom of the bin?

The TSA reserves the right to ban messages it deems inappropriate or offensive, so scratch anything that has to do with explosives or weapons.

But here are some ideas: