Get Ready to Unpack for Airport Security

Get Ready to Unpack for Airport Security

Travelers should expect new procedures at TSA checkpoints later this year, with more carry-on items, like food and tablets, separated into bins

Soon travelers will have to pull out more than just laptops from carry-on bags. Food and books may also end up in separate bins, per a TSA experiment. WSJ's Tanya Rivero and Middle Seat columnist Scott McCartney explain the changes ahead.

By
Scott McCartney
Updated May 24, 2017 12:44 p.m. ET

Arlington, Va.
Changes are coming to airport security checkpoints: TSA wants you to declutter your bags.
New procedures, such as requiring all food or all electronics larger than cellphones be placed in bins separately, are still being tested. Changes haven't yet been finalized, but senior Transportation Security Administration officials agreed to discuss them publicly for the first time. Decisions will be made in a few weeks, with new rules implemented after the summer travel rush, once screeners are trained and announcements made.
Tests began at small airports like Colorado Springs, Colo., Boise, Idaho and Lubbock, Texas. Travelers have since run into them in Los Angeles, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Boston, Detroit, Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Many have been confused by unusual procedures. In Kansas City, Mo., in early May, screeners forced passengers to remove all paper from bags, down to notepads. That test didn’t go well and was halted after a few days, TSA says.
“It has to be efficient and it has to be effective,” says Darby LaJoye, assistant administrator for security operations. “We are far enough along that I am very optimistic that what we are piloting is working.”
Airline baggage fees prompt travelers to load up carry-on cases, which has created problems at X-ray machines. Pictures of the insides of overstuffed bags take more time to read. Screeners must be able to identify each item in the bag—anything that can’t be cleared as safe has to get manually checked, officials say.
Forcing travelers to dump more out of bags, sometimes without warning, will likely confuse and anger fliers until they get used to new rules. TSA figures lines won’t lengthen because the total time at the checkpoint will be the same. Tests have shown TSA can slow down the process of decluttering bags at the start of security, known as divesting, but gain the time back by speeding up X-ray reading and reducing manual bag checks.

TSA has been studying ways to ask travelers to remove items such as food, electronic readers and tablet computers that can clutter bags. This bag, which contains some prohibited items, is used by TSA to demonstrate difficulties X-ray machines have identifying items in cluttered luggage. Photo: Stephen Voss for The Wall Street Journal
TSA says new procedures likely will be confined to standard screening lines and not PreCheck lanes, where trusted travelers get expedited screening and get to leave more items in bags.
Mr. LaJoye says TSA has been considering changes at X-ray machines for about 18 months. “It is not any one particular item we’re worried about. It’s not about paper or food or anything. It’s how best to divest those items,” he says.
Based on pilot-program results, he says officers likely will focus more on travelers when they first start hoisting their bags on tables for the X-ray machine, asking them to remove items and put them in separate bins.
Those items could change line by line, airport by airport. Compliance will be optional, TSA officials say, but not complying may lead to opening a bag for manual inspection.
When checkpoints are busy under current rules, bags pile up waiting for manually screening, and lines can get long. “The more items in a bag, the more complicated it becomes,” says a TSA explosives specialist involved in the pilot program.
To demonstrate, he runs a bag packed with all kinds of electronics and food items through an X-ray machine at Washington’s Reagan National Airport, followed by an uncluttered bag with clothes, a quart-sized bag of toiletries and paperback book.
TSA’s X-ray displays color items in bags by their density—most stuff is orange, blue and turquoise more dense, metal shows up as black.

A TSA demonstration model of explosives hidden inside laptop computers. Fears of bombs hidden inside laptops have led to a laptop ban in cabins on U.S. bound flights from several Middle East and Persian Gulf countries. Photo: Stephen Voss for The Wall Street Journal
The cluttered bag appears on the screen looking like a kindergarten art project gone haywire. With the uncluttered bag, shapes are easy to identify. Even if the cluttered bag doesn’t get pulled out for manual checking, it takes the screener more time to study the image.
“There’s not any one thing in that bag that says red flag. But there’s so much going on it takes time to figure out what it is,” the explosives specialist says.
Food can trigger lots of false alarms because of the density of some items. Chocolate, for example, can look like some types of explosives to X-ray machines. Lots of paper can obscure items—thick books or stacks of books sometimes require manual checks. In Houston in February, TSA found Super Bowl programs created lots of false alarms because they were thick with heavy-stock paper and had reflective holograms.

TSA will begin testing a machine that authenticates IDs such as passports and driver’s licenses and checks names against passenger manifests at Washington’s Dulles Airport, followed by five other cities. Full rollout could take two years. Photo: Stephen Voss for The Wall Street Journal
TSA has been criticized in the past for missing weapons in undercover government tests. Travel groups and security consultants say there is a need for some randomness and unpredictability in security, but increasing hassle just frustrates people.
“It’s all about how you do it,” says Mike McCormick, executive director of the Global Business Travel Association, an organization of corporate travel managers. “We run the risk of, certainly for the U.S., of creating an environment that is really bad for business.”
TSA says it is asking airlines to step up enforcement of the two-item limit—one bag in an overhead bin and one under the seat.
Trans-Atlantic travelers may face other restrictions, such as expanding a cabin laptop ban from select Middle East and Persian Gulf airports to all flights from Europe. But a full ban, which may be hard to enforce at many European airports on flights bound for the U.S., is hardly a sure thing. The airline industry is lobbying for alternative measures.
Another change starting to roll out: TSA will begin using machines to verify ID instead of officers manually studying passports and driver’s licenses. The ID verification machine testing will start at Washington Dulles Airport later this month, then spread to Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Austin, Texas and Washington Reagan Airport. Full rollout should take about two years.
The machine checks for fake IDs and matches up names with passenger lists—no boarding pass will be needed at the TSA checkpoints when the machine is in use. Officers can still clear someone manually if a false alarm is triggered.
TSA tested the technology with a shipment of fake IDs out of China that was intercepted by customs officials.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/get-ready-to-unpack-for-airport-security-1495640411