Central Illinois Regional to Get Quicker Screen Lines

BLOOMINGTON - Ticket lines could soon move faster at the Central Illinois Regional Airport.

The Transportation Security Administration plans to install $1 million "advanced explosive detection equipment" designed to shorten the screening times of checked baggage. The new equipment will process up to 125 pieces of baggage per hour, more than twice as fast as current technology at the ticket counter.

"With this particular equipment, we shouldn?t be opening as many bags" at the ticket line, said Aaron Batt, TSA deputy federal security director for the Bloomington, Champaign and Decatur airports.

Searches at the security checkpoints won?t change, he said.

While common at larger airports, CIRA is the first mid-sized airport in the region to receive the equipment, which works much like Computed Axial Tomography, or a CAT Scan, Batt said.

It should be online Jan. 8, and passengers shouldn?t notice any delays during installation, he said.

The equipment comes at no cost to the airport.

"With passenger traffic more than 13 percent above last year?s level, our customers will benefit from this new more efficient equipment as the airlines and TSA personnel will be able to process passengers and their luggage faster without sacrificing safety," Paul Harmon, chairman of the Bloomington-Normal Airport Authority, stated in a news release.

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