Twenty years after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, air travelers are still grappling with a barrage of enhanced security procedures and long lines.
The safety protocols have managed to protect airports and planes from further attack, but they’ve also made air travel unpleasant at best.
Sorry travelers, it looks like the body scans and shoe removal are here to stay.
“I don’t see it changing,” said Lora Ries, a senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. “It never seems to be fewer requirements … the direction always seems to be for more.”
Expect security to shift outward
As technology evolves, the process of moving through security checkpoints and boarding a plane is expected to become faster and more efficient.
Enhanced shoe scanners that can detect weapons, explosive substances or electronics concealed in shoes and other footwear, will likely be part of the mix, according to Dana Wheeler, CEO of Massachusetts-based Plymouth Rock Technologies.
That means the shoes can stay on.
Security screening, he said, will also be expanded to passenger drop-off points and airport and off-airport parking lots, in addition to walkways and tunnels approaching departure and ticket kiosks.
This means problems can be flagged earlier, potentially making it faster to get through the final security checkpoint.
Wheeler also predicts security areas will increasingly be equipped with next-generation security devices that incorporate artificial intelligence.
“These will include millimeter-wave imaging and radar, infrared sensors and chemical-trace sensors,” he said in a recent interview with Reader’s Digest.
Self-serve kiosks and online check-in are already in use with some airlines. Wheeler said that’s “a definite indicator” that staffed check-in desks are being phased out, which could further speed the departure process for travelers.
TSA spokeswoman Lorie Dankers said her agency can’t accurately predict what technologies it may use in the coming years, but “we are always looking to stay ahead of evolving threats.”
“We often will make it known what our needs are to increase efficiency and address evolving security threats, and then the private sector will develop technologies we can test,” she said.
As frustrating as current security procedures are, the safeguards are working.
“We haven’t had a terrorist attack or even an attempt on planes in many years,” Ries said. “I guess the real question is, how much hassle are we willing to put up with to make sure we have secure flights?”
Art Solis, who co-owns 3.99 Pizza Co. restaurants in Covina, West Covina and Montclair, wonders the same thing.
“It just takes a lot of time,” the 46-year-old West Covina resident said. “We were flying to Las Vegas recently and we got to LAX early, but the security line took so long I worried I was going to miss my flight.”
Horror stories of long waits to get through security lines abound. Justin Erbacci, CEO for Los Angeles World Airports, the airport authority that owns and operates Los Angeles International Airport, said a large percentage of travelers at LAX get through the checkpoint in 15 minutes or less.
Still, he acknowledged it can take longer.
“It varies by time of day,” he said. “There are many different variables.”
Cracks in the system
Despite all of the security measures, breaches still occur.
On Sunday, Aug. 29, a homeless man used a pipe to squeeze beneath a fence at Los Angeles International Airport and made his way onto an airfield where he entered a parked American Airlines plane. The cleaning crew held him down until police arrived and he was arrested.
A similar incident occurred a week earlier at John Wayne Airport in Orange County when a man entered a restricted area on the tarmac and drove an airport vehicle around before he fled and was eventually found in the attic space of a terminal ceiling and taken into custody.
His actions prompted the airport to be placed on lockdown with all flight traffic temporarily halted.
Neither incident resulted in a loss of life. But they illustrate that breaches are still possible, in spite of enhanced security measures.
Erbacci said airport officials are investigating the LAX incident, although he declined to elaborate.
“We have about 1,100 police and security officers here and we also work very closely with federal partners to make sure we cover all aspects of security,” he said. “That’s our highest priority here.”
Privatizing airport security
The TSA is in charge of security operations at about 440 U.S. airports, but some say the job would be better handled by private contractors. They argue that the TSA is bureaucratic and bloated with employee-related costs.
Ries doesn’t disagree.
“It would certainly be less expensive,” she said. “It’s costly to have government employees because you have to pay benefits and they are unionized. And really … you can train anyone to look for security vulnerabilities.”
San Francisco International Airport and 20 others already use private security, although TSA picks the companies and they must adhere to TSA protocols.
“If employees are not performing, they can be dealt with appropriately, better or more effectively on a contract side than a government side,” Sprenger said in a recent interview with Marketplace.
Ries said employee turnover is high at TSA because workers operate in a highly stressful environment due to the massive volume of passengers that pass through security lines.
“They don’t have any law enforcement authority, and that can affect their career ladder,” she said. “Many of them get the training and then move on to a different agency.”
Living in a post 9/11 world
The 9/11 attacks fueled a variety of changes, most notably the formation of the Transportation Security Administration, which operates as a division of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. TSA workers help oversee security operations at most of the nation’s airports.
Air travelers pay to help fund the TSA with the Passenger Fee, also known as the September 11 Security Fee, which is folded into the price of airline tickets. It’s $5.60 for one-way trips that originate at a U.S. airport and $11.20 for round-trip flights.
The boarding process has been made faster for passengers who are pre-registered with TSA PreCheck. That program verifies which passengers present the lowest risk to flight security and allows them to pass through security checkpoints without the need to remove shoes, belts or jackets.
Others are enrolled in a biometrics program with a company called CLEAR, which also speeds the check-in process. That system uses facial recognition and fingerprints which are transformed into an encrypted code to identify air travelers.