But those days could be coming to an end sooner rather than later, as a new wave of screening technology is tested and eventually rolled out at airports around the country.
The new devices currently being tested at Phoenix’s Sky Harbor International Airport are based on a technology that has been around for decades — computed tomography, more commonly referred to as CT.
The technology is a staple of the medical industry and is regularly used at airports to scan checked luggage. But until now, the devices have been too large, heavy and noisy to be used at terminal security checkpoints.
That’s changing with a new generation of smaller CT devices, which the TSA is testing through its innovation task force.
The effort received a major boost last week, with American Airlines announcing a $6 million deal with technology maker Analogic for eight machines that will be tested at airports around the country. The airports have not yet been publicly identified.
The push comes at a time of new and complex threats to aviation security, with U.S. officials warning of terrorist efforts to smuggle hard-to-detect explosives aboard planes inside personal electronic devices.
The threat prompted the U.S. to ban laptops in the cabins of inbound flights from several Middle Eastern countries in March. Last week, Department of Homeland Security officials called for increased security measures at overseas airports, including things like enhanced screening of personal electronics and wider use of bomb-sniffing dogs, in lieu of an extended laptop ban, which airlines worry could dampen demand and inconvenience passengers.
"We believe it enhances the passenger experience and at the same time enhances security for aviation officials. Those two are really important to us" American spokesman Ross Feinstein said of the CT technology.
A lot less waiting in lines
Rather than the two-dimensional scans provided by the current generation of technology, the CT checkpoints being tested use a series of X-rays to create a three-dimensional image for TSA officers to review.The effect has been compared to making the jump from standard-definition to high-definition televisions.
“The [two-dimensional] image can’t handle complexity in the bag. If you’ve ever been in the line, people are pulling stuff out of their bags, their laptops, phones, bottles of water,” said Jim Ryan, Analogic’s senior vice president and group general manager for security detection and power technologies. “CT technology can handle that complexity because it’s viewing the bag in 360 degrees with a lot more fidelity.”
Agents can look through bags layer-by-layer and zoom in on individual items for a closer look.
The payoff is quicker parsing of bags and, ultimately, a world where passengers won’t have to take their liquids, gels and possibly even their electronics out of their carry-on bags at security.
Ryan said that in limited trials conducted overseas with CT technology, security lines moved 50 percent faster.
All in good time
Liquids and gels were first banned from carry-on luggage in 2006 after British authorities foiled a terrorist plot to detonate liquid explosives aboard airliners traveling to the U.S. and Canada.The ban was relaxed later that year, but passengers have been limited to carrying their liquids in containers of 3.4 ounces or less ever since.
Broader restrictions around personal electronic devices due to new threats could be even more disruptive for airlines and passengers, heightening the urgency around the testing currently underway.
There’s no exact timeline for when CT scanners could be put into widespread use at airports across the U.S. and abroad. TSA will collect data from the field tests being conducted to help set operational and functional requirements and to inform whether the technology is right for a wider rollout.
Even if the scanners are approved, the agency would still have to go through the usual process of government contracting, set a budget for the project and eventually deliver and install hundreds, if not thousands, of the devices.
©2017 The Dallas Morning News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
