Airport security measures slowing passengers

Fliers advised to arrive at DIA at least 4 hours early

Sarah Huntley, News Staff Writer

Published September 28, 2001 at midnight

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Passengers at Denver International Airport encountered lines at the security screening areas Thursday that snaked around corners, wound through lobby seating areas and moved an inch at a time.

At about noon, between 270 and 400 people were jammed into each line.

Many encountered waits up up 2 1/2 hours, prompting airport officials to warn travelers to arrive at least four hours before their scheduled flights.

The snarled lines were created by new security measures, with screeners opening and X-raying laptops and using wands and pat-downs to check passengers who made the magnetometers beep.

"This is not a good thing," said DIA manager Bruce Baumgartner. He said he would meet with airline representatives to find a way to reduce the wait times.

Some passengers waited stoically, thinking the wait was worth it.

"You have no choice, really, but to be patient," said Patricia Williams, reading a Catherine Coulter novel. She had been in line for security for two hours and still had 65 people in front of her.

"We probably should have done some of this a long time ago," said Williams, who was headed back to her hometown of Scottsdale, Ariz., after visiting her daughter in Fort Collins.

Airport spokesman Dan Melfi said the long lines Thursday were due partly to the need to explain the new rules to screeners. But the airport is now urging passengers to arrive four hours early and skip the carry-on luggage.

"You've got people trying to take everything on the plane -- the kitchen sink and everything else," Melfi said.

The new security measures announced Thursday by President Bush were a hot topic for those standing in lines.

Among those proposals are armed National Guard troops patrolling airports; new federal security service for airports; more armed, plainclothes air marshals on random flights; and a $500 million fund to finance aircraft modifications such as strengthening cockpit doors.

Williams was skeptical about putting soldiers at the airport. "I don't know that the National Guard has been trained to deal with the issue of airport security," Williams said. "I guess it can't hurt."

As passengers shuffled two steps forward in the line, airport employees passed out miniature chocolate bars, crackers and coffee -- a welcome treat, especially for those who were traveling alone and could not leave their place in line.

Horace McCoy and John Giordani said the wait was costing them at least half a day of work on their business trip to Denver.

"I'm sure we are going to have to reconsider how much travel we are going to do because of this," said Giordani, a salesman. "Everybody is for heightened security, but at an appropriate level, not going from one extreme to another. There's got to be middle ground."

Stacy Swanstrom, 28, of Denver, arrived two hours and 45 minutes early and was still worried about catching her plane. United Airlines had suggested two hours was enough.

Eric Jones, 57, of Fort Collins, checked the bag he usually carries on. "I thought I'd sail right through," he said. Instead, he waited.

Jones suggested that the airport open a separate line for passengers without carry-on luggage -- sort of "an HOV lane" for travelers. "That might encourage more people to check their bags," he said.

R. Steven Williams, a vice president with Merrill Lynch from Salt Lake City, also said the lines can't continue for long. "This is not how you stimulate the economy, having all the salesmen in the country waiting in line, not making deals.

"There is probably not a person here who wouldn't have paid an extra $40 to not have this line," he said. "They tell us to get back to normal, come out and fly. I'm stuck here for four hours. Tell them to get back to normal."

Williams, who served in Panama and Grenada as a paratrooper with the Army's 82nd Airborne Division, said he would like to see the government allow qualified veterans to carry personal weapons on airplanes. He said he would not hesitate to defend the cockpit and fellow passengers if confronted by hijackers.

"We're all trained," he said.

Jennifer Isaacs, a flight attendant for 18 years, said she supports the president's new plans to enhance the sky marshal program and to put the federal government in charge of airport security.

"Anything that is added security, we are all for that," she said.

Isaacs said she and her colleagues have also discussed the need for more uniformity. Some captains have instituted new safety policies on their own and procedures vary from airport to airport.

Another flight attendant, who declined to give her name because of employer confidentiality rules, said she believes even the new measures are too superficial. She said she has a friend who set off the metal detector with his steel-toed boots. No one asked him to remove the boots for further inspection.

The attendant, who has been on the job for 5 1/2 years, said she would feel significantly safer if every piece of hand luggage was searched and all cargo was X-rayed for potential explosives. She urged regulators to study the example of the Israeli airlines.

"I think there is a lot more that needs to be done," she said.

Contact Sarah Huntley at (303) 892-5212 or huntleys@RockyMountainNews.com.

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