Bearing the cost of tight security
By Robert McCoppin Daily Herald Staff Writer
Airline passengers might face the double whammy of more delays and higher fares next year - but industry analysts say the price is worth it for tighter security.
When the first stage of the Aviation and Transportation Security Act kicks in Jan. 18, airlines - for the first time - will be required to provide some form of security check of every bag on board.
By federal law, airlines will be required to either screen every checked bag by hand, bomb-sniffing dog, or X-ray machine, or match every bag to a person on board flights.
The extra screening might cause more delays - on top of longer lines now to conduct more thorough carry-on security since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11.
Big hubs like Chicago's O'Hare International Airport might be especially vulnerable to delays, analysts said, because they rely on high volume and tight connection times that are vulnerable to any slip-ups.
"We can probably expect lines to increase until we really work out the kinks," O'Hare spokeswoman Monique Bond said.
To make room for the machines used to check for explosives at O'Hare, planners are changing designs for an expansion of ticket areas, Aviation Commissioner Thomas Walker said. Work to extend the terminal facades to the sidewalks is due to start in the spring 2002 after being temporarily put off.
The goal, Walker said, will be to screen bags while maintaining current turnaround times for airplanes and connecting passengers to make their next flights, which can be as little as 35 minutes.
According to U.S. Transportation Security Administration spokesman Paul Takemoto, the airlines' most likely first choice - in part to maintain schedules - will be to screen luggage and match every bag to a passenger. Then, if a passenger doesn't get on, that person's bags would be taken off.
Bag matching has been required on international flights for years. It's meant to prevent someone from planting a bomb in a bag and then not getting on board, as in the case of the bombing of Pan Am 103 (news - web sites) flight over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, which killed 270 people.
Frontier and Jet Blue airlines recently became the first to begin bag matching on all domestic U.S. flights.
The system, Frontier spokeswoman Tracey Kelly said, uses the airline's existing personnel and software. It is the fastest, easiest and cheapest first step, Kelly said.
But DePaul University professor Joseph Schwieterman, who studies the industry, believes the airlines are two years away from efficiently matching all 1.3 billion bags a year without major delays.
"This is a major change for the airlines they're not ready for," he said.
The main problem is how to handle delays caused by having to take baggage off flights.
"Unless properly managed," Schwieterman warned, "it could be a nightmare for hubs where people are making connections."
Frontier, which operates out of Midway Airport in Chicago, has experienced few delays, with all less than 15 minutes. But its 112 daily flights go through one hub - Denver - a much simpler system than larger airlines with multiple hubs and hundreds of departures.
The regulation may have to be phased in, Schwieterman said, to allow time for implementation.
Of course, bag matching would not protect against a suicide bomber or someone using an unsuspecting passenger to take a bomb on board.
To protect against that, a further step must be taken by December 2002. By then, all bags must be screened by explosive-detection systems, which use CAT scans, or computerized automated tomography, to look at the contents of a bag in different ways.
Not nearly enough of the CAT-scan machines are available now. So far, 153 are deployed at 50 airports out of about 430 airports with commercial airlines nationwide.
At least 2,000 of the machines are needed. They cost about $1 million each, which members of Congress have said they are ready to fund. But only two companies are certified to make the machines, and they cannot keep up with demand.
Sen. Dick Durbin, a Democrat from Springfield, has said the most important first step is to make sure all existing bomb detection machines are being fully utilized. Durbin criticized airlines at O'Hare for rarely using the machines, which he says can handle more than 200 bags an hour.
The other options also have limitations. There are 188 bomb-sniffing dog teams at 39 airports, with another 25 airports due to get them next year.
That too, is not nearly enough to do the job, and it takes months to train a dog and its handler, and a dog can only be used for two hours before needing a rest.
The final option, to hand-check every bag, would be by far the most time-consuming.
The efficiency of new security is a concern to airline officials, United Airline spokesman Joe Hopkins said.
"The whole industry is grappling with trying to develop a bag-match program, to understand the FAA (news - web sites)'s (Federal Aviation Administration) definition of what it should look like," he said.
For instance, Hopkins said, officials want to know if they match a bag on an initial flight, whether they have to match it to the passenger on the connecting flight as well. Though suspected hijackers boarded connecting flights Sept. 11, the new law does not specifically address such situations.
For United, O'Hare is the most critical airport in the nation for efficient bag screening, Hopkins said, because it handles more flights and passengers for United than any other airport.
"We want a good program to counter terrorism, but we want to meet customers' needs to make smooth transitions," he said. "Our hubs, we want to be perceived as good places to make connections."
U.S. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta (news - web sites) initially doubted whether the airlines could meet the Jan. 18 deadline for screening, but security spokesman Takemoto said, "We're doing all we can to meet that deadline."
"Our goal is to have no weapons, no waiting," Takemoto said, meaning a wait of less than 10 minutes.
And passengers will help pay for the extra security.
By Feb. 17, under a new federal law, passengers will be charged a $2.50 federal security fee for each leg of a flight, or a maximum of $10 for a round-trip with one stop each way.
The extra fee comes as airlines struggle through their worst period, with passengers loads down 20 percent last month.
Airlines have slashed fares in a desperate attempt to lure passengers back.
Some industry observers, including David Stempler, president of the Air Travelers Association in Washington, D.C., said even a slight increase in price will reduce demand.
The extra $10 alone probably won't cause many people not to fly, but when combined with all other existing fees and fares, Stempler said, the question becomes whether passengers are willing to pay the rising total cost.
"Economists say at some point the price gets too high and people won't fly," he said.
Ten dollars might not seem like much to pay, but multiplied for a family of five, $50 may make a difference.
Yet the fee is necessary, Stempler said, for the government to take over security from the airlines.
As of Feb. 17, the Transportation Security Administration, part of the U.S. Department of Transportation, will take over responsibility for providing security for the nation's air travel. By Nov. 19, the agency is required to hire enough federal workers to fill all 28,000 passenger-screening jobs.
Until then, the airlines will continue to bear that responsibility, hiring private security companies to do the screening.
Don Kimball, a travel advisor for Terry Trippler & Associates in Minneapolis, agreed that the added cost is worth it. "Those who have a problem with it have to realize that some things have to be paid for."
O'Hare: Bag screening 'could be a nightmare' |
