Airports and airlines ask who will pay for massive modifications needed to achieve checked-bag deadline

Pressure is mounting on the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) for relief from a year-end deadline to begin screening all airline passengers' checked bags for explosives.

Nonthreatening objects often cause alerts in FAA-certified bulk explosives detection systems, forcing screeners to take a second look at checked bags.

Two prominent airline CEOs, American Airlines' Don Carty and Continental Airlines' Gordon Bethune, are the latest in a growing line of influential aviation executives to call on the TSA to step back and rethink the security mandates dictated by Congress last year. Last month, the directors of 39 major airports, including Atlanta and Dallas/Fort Worth, wrote to the Transportation Dept. pleading for legislative relief, saying the mandate to screen about 1 billion checked bags next year would "create unacceptably long lines" at airports and would result in an "unnecessarily expensive solution."

TSA director John Magaw has rebuffed the notion, testifying in a June 20 budget hearing in Washington that the TSA would "meet the deadlines before us in a way that promotes cost-effectiveness and accountability." Magaw is tasked with federalizing airport security functions by Nov. 19 in more than 400 U.S. airports--a task that he said will require more than 65,000 federal employees. A larger problem will be the TSA's mandate to put the hardware and operators in place to begin probing all checked bags for explosives by Dec. 31.

There's a growing concern in the industry that, despite Congress' best intentions in demanding a more robust security net to prevent explosives from bringing down an airplane, the TSA's solutions could further strain the ailing airline business by introducing longer lines and higher ticket prices.

Consultants and airport operators are only now beginning to feel the immense impact of what's in store later this year if Magaw holds to his charge.

At Boston Logan International Airport, officials have decided the only way to accomplish the task is to erect a new building to house an in-line network of minivan-sized, highly automated bulk explosives detection systems (EDS) linked together with a baggage conveyor belt. The project will cost about $100 million, not including the 37 explosives detection machines to be supplied by the government, said Terry Rookard, vice president and principal architect at DMJM + Harris. Officials at Dallas/Fort Worth airport are estimating their proposed in-line system will cost $196 million.

It's not clear whether the TSA, fighting a budget shortfall of more than $4 billion this year, can reimburse Boston or other airports for their entire expenses, however, a situation that some say will ultimately be reflected in higher ticket prices. The TSA has budgeted $350,000 to install each bulk detection unit, adding up to about $13 million in Boston's case. Magaw said funding for in-line systems, widely considered to be the most optimal solution for the long term, would be dealt with after the Dec. 31 deadline is met.

The other option at Boston--putting the machines near the 375 ticket counters in Logan's five terminals--would have been less costly, both from an equipment and staffing point of view. But Rookard said there simply wasn't enough room for that many bulk detection machines and the 1,500 TSA employees needed to run the equipment. By designing a new building, officials were able to incorporate a mix of bulk machines that will require about 670 operators.

In either case, a major driver in TSA's staffing requirements is the high false-alarm rate of the bulk machines. A false alarm can occur, for example, when the bulk system detects an object with the same approximate density as an explosive. The quandary can be resolved in several ways, although the most thorough is time-consuming, manually intensive explosives trace detection equipment. Using trace, an operator manually swabs the outside and/or inside of a bag and processes the sample through a tabletop explosives analyzer. Magaw said operators have been able to complete trace checks in about 2 min. per bag.

For the current generation of EDS machines, false alarms occur on roughly three out of every 10 bags. Future machines, in development but several years from production, will be capable of reducing the false-positive rate to less than 10%. Meanwhile, operators have to clear many bags via trace detection methods or hand searches.