'Checkpoint of the future' takes shape at Texas airport
DALLAS -- At a terminal being renovated here at Love Field, contractors are installing 500 high-definition security cameras sharp enough to read an auto license plate or a logo on a shirt.
The cameras, capable of tracking passengers from the parking garage to gates to the tarmac, are a key first step in creating what the airline industry would like to see at airports worldwide: a security apparatus that would scrutinize passengers more thoroughly, but less intrusively, and in faster fashion than now.
It's part of what the International Air Transport Association, or IATA, which represents airlines globally, calls "the checkpoint of the future."
The goal is for fliers to move almost non-stop through security from the curb to the gate, in contrast to repeated security stops and logjams at checkpoints.
After checking their luggage, passengers would identify themselves not with driver's licenses and paper boarding passes, but by scanning fingerprints or irises to prove they have an electronic ticket.
Passengers would walk with their carry-ons through a screening tunnel, where they'd undergo electronic scrutiny — replacing what now happens at as many as three different stops as they're scanned for metal objects, non-metallic items and explosives.
Passengers would no longer have to empty carry-ons of liquids and laptops before putting them on conveyor belts for X-ray scans. They could keep their belts and shoes on. They could avoid a backlog at full-body scanners and a finger swab for explosive residue.
If screeners notice anything suspicious, a passenger would still be pulled aside and possibly patted down. But otherwise, passengers are supposed to reach their gates faster. And machines that accomplish each part of this transformation already exist or are in development.
The changing technology, combined with new screening tactics and changes at airports like the ones under construction here at Love Field, could make the checkpoint of the future a reality in a decade, the airlines say.
"This isn't really science fiction that we're talking about," says Ken Dunlap, IATA's global director of security.
Need to speed security
The push for faster security is prompted by necessity.
The Federal Aviation Administration projects the number of passengers flying inside the USA will nearly double in the next 20 years, to 1.2 billion. Security has slowed since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Before then, about 350 people passed through checkpoints each hour, the IATA says. A November survey at 142 airports found processing times fell to 149 an hour, with the worst at 60, Dunlap says.
"All of this confirms downward trends that we've been seeing since 2005, that show, regardless of the market, regardless of the region, the processing numbers are going down," Dunlap says.
The key to speeding up checkpoints and making security less intrusive will be to identify and assess travelers according to the risks they pose to safety in the skies. The so-called riskiest or unknown passengers would face the toughest scrutiny, including questioning and more sensitive electronic screening. Those who voluntarily provide more information about themselves to the government would be rewarded with faster passage.
"It's not a single piece of technology, a single system," says John Halinski, the Transportation Security Administration's assistant administrator for global strategies. "There is no silver bullet."
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