This article from NYTimes.com has been sent to you by psa188@juno.com. The Lull Before the Storm for the Nation's Airports November 19, 2002 By JOE SHARKEY SALT LAKE CITY -- The impossible-to-meet Dec. 31 deadline for screening all checked bags will largely be met, Adm. James M. Loy told airport executives here last week. Listening to the retired admiral, who is the acting under secretary of transportation for security, I recalled an old saying from my distant Navy days: Stand by for heavy rolls. On a ship, it means get ready to rock, because we're heading into rough seas. This is not bad advice now for business travelers, who have mostly made their peace with the airport experience over the last year. Come New Year's Day, when every checked bag is officially required to be examined for explosives, certain adjustments in that stance may become necessary. "I am well aware of the concerns raised by some airport operators that pressing forward with the Dec. 31 deadline will result in unacceptable delays for airline passengers and added costs for airports," Admiral Loy said. "However, I must balance the concerns of the airport operators with the very real security concerns that our enemies so effectively brought to our attention." He added, "I don't, and I won't, support a wholesale delay in the Dec. 31 deadline." Admiral Loy happens to be retired from the Coast Guard, not the Navy. This recalls another Navy saying, which is that Coast Guard officers are required to be at least six feet tall, so that they can walk to shore if their ships go down. But that's beside the point in rough seas. In July, when the admiral took over and rallied a badly flagging Transportation Security Administration - and I promise to give a rest now to the naval allusions - his orders were full speed ahead. Meanwhile, officials at the T.S.A., which celebrates its first birthday today, are high-fiving one another this week, and with some justification. "Much to the surprise of many skeptics," as Admiral Loy put it, the agency has managed to hire and train more than 44,000 federal airport screeners, who are now working checkpoints at all 429 commercial airports in the United States. The airport security work force, once extremely low paid and inadequately trained by private contractors who ran the checkpoints until last year, now consists entirely of federal employees making a living wage - $25,000 to $35,000 a year, with benefits. Every frequent traveler I know agrees that the employees at airport security, where sullenness and outright rudeness once were common, are now overwhelmingly professional and courteous. That's made a huge difference to business travelers, even though security-screening procedures themselves can still seem idiotic. Especially that computerized secondary gate-screening system, which uses mystical Harry Potter-like formulas that often select the least-suspicious passengers, including harried business travelers flying on complicated itineraries, to be pulled aside for that irritating additional perp pat-down and bag check while everyone else is boarding the plane. At the Airports Council International-North America conference here last week, Admiral Loy and other federal officials spoke forcefully about the need to balance stringent security requirements, like as the Dec. 31 bag-screening deadline, with customer-service imperatives like allaying the resentment of business travelers about the so-called security hassle factor. Airlines say this has cost billions this year in lost ticket revenue, as some business travelers simply choose not to go. Right now, during a traditionally slow period for travel, airports by and large are running fairly smoothly, the occasional security alarm aside. I've been traveling a lot over the last month, and the two major impressions I have about airport security are shorter lines with fewer problems and large numbers of white-shirted T.S.A. agents clustered around checkpoints with little to do. (This impression, incidentally, gives legs to the wisecrack currently being passed among business travelers that the acronym T.S.A. in fact stands for "Thousands Standing Around.") But don't get used to the calm. Business travelers looking ahead to trips this winter need to be prepared for some rougher times, several airport managers said, though Admiral Loy switched gears and said yesterday that the bag-screening deadline would not be strictly enforced at about a dozen big airports. Many other airport managers are now frantically trying to jury-rig a bag-screening system that will enable them and the T.S.A. to declare victory come Jan. 1 without at the same time bringing air travel to a virtual standstill. Starting Jan. 1, travelers will most likely encounter a baggage processing minefield, airport managers warn. About 1,100 of the eight-ton, S.U.V.-size explosive-detection scanning machines are supposed to be installed at airports (out of an estimated 6,000 that are needed). At best, these machines process 150 to 200 bags an hour, and flag 25 to 30 percent of those bags as false positives. Flagged bags then have to be opened and examined by hand. Supplementing the big machines will be about 6,000 table-top trace-detection devices, which require a screener to run a heated swab over a bag. When these machines were used on carry-on bags during the Olympics Games here last winter, processing time averaged 47 seconds a bag, according to a study by the Public Policy Institute of the libertarian Reason Foundation. Bags that the machines can't get to are likely to be opened and spot-checked by security employees. Airport managers say they don't have a clue yet how they're going to handle the inevitable pilferage problems when thousands of employees are given luggage-room access to passengers' belongings. So, many airport executives are braced for chaos. But most remain cautiously confident that, as Admiral Loy appeared to signal yesterday, the T.S.A. will help them figure out a way to control the damage and introduce flexible interim solutions to total baggage screening if the system does start breaking down in January. About 650 million passengers will pass though domestic airports this year, many of them checking at least one bag. The math is daunting, but a degree of optimism still prevails. "The thinking is, If we don't get it right the first time around, we can come back after an interval and then perfect it," said Steven D. Van Beek, the senior vice president for policy at the airports council. But he wasn't making any predictions on when perfection might arrive. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/19/business/19ROAD.html?ex=1038722814&ei=1&en=ef0a4ef11dacf20d 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 onlinesales@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 2002 The New York Times Company