Current:Home > MarketsSignalHub-TSA unveils passenger self-screening lanes at Vegas airport as ‘a step into the future’ -NextWave Wealth Hub
SignalHub-TSA unveils passenger self-screening lanes at Vegas airport as ‘a step into the future’
Chainkeen View
Date:2025-04-11 10:13:14
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Federal airport security officials unveiled passenger self-screening lanes Wednesday at busy Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas,SignalHub with plans to test it for use in other cities around the country.
“How do we step into the future? This is a step,” said a system designer, Dimitri Kusnezov, science and technology under secretary at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. “The interface with people makes all the difference.”
The Transportation Security Administration checkpoint — initially only in Las Vegas, only for TSA PreCheck customers and only using the English language — incorporates a screen with do-it-yourself instructions telling people how to smoothly pass themselves and their carry-on luggage through pre-flight screening with little or no help from uniformed TSA officers.
“We want to avoid passengers having to be patted down,” said John Fortune, program manager of the Department of Homeland Security’s “Screening at Speed” program and a developer with Kusnezov of the prototype.
Instead of a boxy belt-fed device using a stack of gray trays, the futuristic-looking baggage and personal belongings inspection system looks like a scaled-down starship medical magnetic resonance imaging machine. It uses an automated bin return that sanitizes trays with germ-killing ultraviolet light between users.
Travelers step into a separate clear glass body scanning booth with a video display inside showing how to stand when being sensed with what officials said is the type of “millimeter wave technology” already in use around the country. A reporter found it sensitive enough to identify a forgotten handkerchief in a pocket. He did not have to remove his shoes.
“Really, one of the main aims here is to allow individuals to get through the system without necessarily having to interact directly with an officer and ... at their own pace,” said Christina Peach, a TSA administrator involved in the system design. “It’s also about not feeling rushed.”
Nationally, nearly all passengers who pay to enroll in the TSA PreCheck program pass through screening in 10 minutes or less, agency spokesman R. Carter Langston said, while regular traveler and carry-on screening takes about 30 minutes.
Peach said eight uniformed TSA officers might be needed to staff two lanes of the new system, compared with 12 officers in lanes today.
However, Kusnezov and Karen Burke, TSA federal security director in Nevada, said agents including union members would just be freed from hands-on screening to focus more attention on broader security concerns.
“No one is going to lose their job,” Burke said.
Fortune declined to estimate the cost of designing the system, but he said the type of scanners used were similar to ones already deployed around the country.
Officials said they’ll time how quickly travelers pass through the prototype during evaluations this year.
Testing is being done at a unique-in-the-nation “innovation checkpoint” that TSA unveiled in 2019 in a sprawling international arrivals terminal that opened in 2012 at Harry Reid airport. It already features screening lanes with instruction displays and estimated wait times.
“This change in technology is for people who want to get through a checkpoint faster,” said Keith Jeffries, a former TSA director at Los Angeles International Airport and now vice president of K2 Security Screening Group, a company that installs screening systems at shipping ports including airports. “It’ll be a great step, but I anticipate it will be for the experienced passengers.”
Jeffries, in an interview on Tuesday with The Associated Press, compared the new system to self-checkout lanes that were introduced in the 1980s and are now common at supermarkets across the nation. He recalled that some shoppers initially avoided scanning their own purchases.
“It’s going to take time to educate the public,” he said of the TSA screening lanes. “You’re going to have a new generation of travelers that just wants to get through with the least amount of hassle and delay. I think eventually we’ll see more and more of them.”
Harry Reid International Airport was the seventh-busiest passenger airport in the U.S. in 2022, ranked by Airports Council International behind New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport. In 2023, the Las Vegas airport handled a new record of 57.6 million arriving and departing passengers.
The Transportation Security Administration reported its busiest day ever at the airport last month, screening nearly 104,000 travelers and their luggage as they headed for airline flights Feb. 12, the day after the NFL Super Bowl was played at Allegiant Stadium.
____
Associated Press writer Rebecca Santana in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.
veryGood! (32)
Related
- The company planning a successor to Concorde makes its first supersonic test
- Bachelorette Rachel Lindsay's husband files for divorce after four years of marriage
- Massive California wave kills Georgia woman visiting beach with family
- Shop These Jaw-Dropping Home Deals for Finds up to 60% Off That Will Instantly Upgrade Your Space
- Most popular books of the week: See what topped USA TODAY's bestselling books list
- Nigel Lythgoe is leaving Fox's 'So You Think You Can Dance' amid sexual assault lawsuits
- Polish farmers suspend their blockade at the Ukrainian border after a deal with the government
- South Korea says the North has again fired artillery shells near their sea border
- See you latte: Starbucks plans to cut 30% of its menu
- David Hess, Longtime Pennsylvania Environmental Official Turned Blogger, Reflects on His Career and the Rise of Fracking
Ranking
- Moving abroad can be expensive: These 5 countries will 'pay' you to move there
- 24 nifty tips to make 2024 even brighter
- How to deal with same-sex unions? It’s a question fracturing major Christian denominations
- How Jennifer Love Hewitt Left Hollywood to Come Back Stronger Than Ever
- Juan Soto to be introduced by Mets at Citi Field after striking record $765 million, 15
- Massive vehicle pileup on southern California highway leaves 2 dead, 9 injured, authorities say
- At Florida’s only public HBCU, students watch warily for political influence on teaching of race
- Gypsy Rose Blanchard Reveals What Makes Her and Husband Ryan Anderson's Marriage Work
Recommendation
Rolling Loud 2024: Lineup, how to stream the world's largest hip hop music festival
Should your kids play on a travel team? A guide for sports parents
Bryce Underwood, top recruit in 2025 class, commits to LSU football
South Korea says North Korea has fired artillery near their sea boundary for a third straight day.
Justice Department, Louisville reach deal after probe prompted by Breonna Taylor killing
Nearly 3,000 pages of Jeffrey Epstein documents released, but some questions remain unanswered
Norwegian mass killer attempts to sue the state once more for an alleged breach of human rights
On Jan. 6 many Republicans blamed Trump for the Capitol riot. Now they endorse his presidential bid