This article from NYTimes.com has been sent to you by psa188@juno.com. /-------------------- advertisement -----------------------\ Share the spirit with a gift from Starbucks. Our coffee brewers & espresso machines at special holiday prices. http://www.starbucks.com/shop/subcategory.asp?category_name=Sale/Clearance&ci=274&cookie_test=1 \----------------------------------------------------------/ Airlines to Make Certain Every Bag Is Accompanied by a Passenger January 16, 2002 By JOE SHARKEY IF all goes according to plan, airlines hope to operate without major problems this Friday when they will begin ensuring that every checked bag is accompanied by its owner when a plane takes off. Of course, if all went invariably according to plan, most of us would be rich and enjoying early retirement already, and not worried about, say, completing that 7 a.m. flight to Seattle with a perilously tight 30- minute layover at O'Hare. Will there be big new problems traveling by air starting on Friday? Let's just say the airlines believe they have made adequate preparations to avoid chaos, and that they're hoping for the best, which includes good flying weather. "Obviously, if the ice storm we had recently in Atlanta happened again on Friday, that would start to complicate things," said Ed Faberman, the executive director of the Air Carrier Association of America, a trade group that represents regional airlines. "But I don't believe we're going to have major disruptions," he added. "It's not like come Friday morning we're going to throw a switch and every airport in the country is going to act differently." Some smaller carriers, like Frontier Airlines (news/quote), have been matching bags since December, he said. Even the big carriers have been doing so for international flights, he added. On Friday, in response to a new federal law that requires them to show they are doing some form of screening on all checked baggage by then, the airlines are going to ensure that all checked bags on originating flights are matched to passengers who actually board. • The potential for disruption with the new procedures is fairly clear. If a passenger checks a bag and then for some reason does not actually board the plane, that unaccompanied bag must then be removed from the cargo hold before that plane can take off. Delays would ensue. There are several reasons a person might check a bag and not board the plane, incidentally. Here are three examples: 1. Passenger has an emergency, or a sudden itinerary change, after check-in and before boarding. 2. At the departure gate, passenger is bumped from an overbooked flight on which baggage has already been loaded. 3. Passenger is an evil person who wants to blow up the plane with a bomb, but doesn't want to actually die in the process. The new system is intended to address those contingencies in this manner: 1. Flight is delayed (with potential backups through the hub-and-spoke system) while the unaccompanied baggage is found and removed, but new baggage-tag screening machines should help minimize delays by making it easier to retrieve specific bags. 2. Bags of voluntary "bumpees" will be removed (see above), but bags of passengers bumped involuntarily will remain, as involuntary bumpees had no way of knowing they wouldn't board. 3. Bag with bomb will be routinely removed once bomber fails to board. Even a casual analysis of the new security methods, of course, will turn up what Kevin P. Mitchell, the president of the Business Travel Coalition, describes as "a few loopholes," among them the fact that the new baggage-match procedures wouldn't deter a bomber who accepted suicide as part of the deal, as the Sept. 11 killers obviously did. Nor would it stop, say, a cabbie or a bellhop with access to a passenger's bag from planting a bomb, he pointed out. Despite the flaws, the new system is important because of its symbolism, he said. It shows that the airlines, which long resisted comprehensive checked-baggage screening because of its costs and difficulties, are prepared to respond forcefully to meet the first of several federal deadlines for toughening security, he added. It helps that this baggage-matching deadline came in the winter, Mr. Mitchell said. That's the slow season for leisure travelers, who typically carry the most bags. "Business travelers tend not to have a lot of checked luggage," he said. Mr. Mitchell and other passenger advocates say that any kinks in the system can be worked out before heavier travel periods begin in the spring. Hoping for the best, the airlines are generally not advising passengers to expect more check-in delays than usual on Friday. The carriers advise passengers to check their Web sites for advisories. Whether new backups and delays occur starting Friday or not, few in the industry and among passenger advocacy groups actually regard the new baggage-screening system as representing a significant improvement in security. Merely requiring that bags be matched to passengers "is an ineffective method for determining whether there are bombs on board," said David S. Stempler, the president of the Air Travelers Association. "It's based on the assumption that you don't have a lot of suicide bombers" threatening air security, he said, adding, "It's a lot of window dressing, and a lot of trouble, without a big increase in security for the passenger." • The next major federal deadline for the industry is Dec. 31, when airlines will be required to screen each bag for bombs. To meet that requirement, the airlines "are going to have to spend enormous amounts of money" and even redesign terminals to accommodate new bomb- checking machines, said Robert Crandall, the retired chief executive of American Airlines. Like many airline executives, Mr. Crandall says that airline security next needs to move beyond the cargo to "looking at passengers themselves." He added: "We have to set aside this politically correct nonsense about being unwilling to profile. We have to profile." http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/16/business/16TRAV.html?ex=1012195854&ei=1&en=6b669db1ee5a9947 HOW TO ADVERTISE --------------------------------- For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters or other creative advertising opportunities with The New York Times on the Web, please contact Alyson Racer at alyson@nytimes.com or visit our online media kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo For general information about NYTimes.com, write to help@nytimes.com. Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company