Atlanta Bag Checks Go High Tech

Those SUV-sized luggage-screening machines taking up space in the check-in areas at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport --- a post-9/11 fixture --- soon will be gone.

They'll be replaced by a more sophisticated, behind-the-scenes bomb-screening system that has been under construction for nearly two years. Work on underground bunkers to house the new system caused months of detours on roads around the Atlanta airport.

The new system in the South Terminal, mostly used by Delta Air Lines, will come online around the end of March, said Brian Morris, the Transportation Security Administration's program director for the project. Work on the south side is 95 percent complete and the system is being tested, he said. The North Terminal work will start about a month later.

From a passenger's point of view, it will be like a return to the days before the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Just walk up to the counter and drop off your luggage.

From there, the bags will take a slow, winding trip on a conveyor belt to a row of explosive-detection machines that perform a kind of CT scan on the contents. The machines, made by GE Security, cost $1.4 million each and use technology developed for the medical field. They are the fastest bag-screening machines to be approved by the TSA.

A TSA screener reads the image on a computer screen and flags anything that looks suspicious because of its shape, density or some other characteristic.

If a bag is flagged, it stops at a gate that pops up like a pinball machine paddle and directs it to an underground room for further checking. More than 100 bags could be checked in that room at any given time, Morris said.

Screeners use the computer image to pinpoint where the suspicious object is and use a hand-held wand to test for explosive traces.

For the TSA, the new system's benefits go beyond safe skies, said spokesman Christopher White. Fewer workers are needed on it, so about 100 former bag screeners can be reassigned to passenger screening.

Also, the TSA has been plagued by worker injuries from lifting all those heavy bags; the new system is expected to dramatically reduce injury claims because fewer screeners will have to lift bags, White said.

In addition, they won't be opening and searching as many bags, which the agency hopes will reduce losses and thefts from bags.

Oversized bags holding items such as skis, along with packed guns and other weapons, still will be hand-searched. The machines can accommodate bags under 54 inches long.

More than five miles of conveyor belt has been installed to carry passengers' bags in the North and South terminals and E concourse, Morris said.

The project cost $179.4 million --- less than the $215 million original estimate, in part because the airport managed the project internally instead of hiring a contractor, said airport spokeswoman Felicia Browder. The TSA put in $94 million; the rest was divided between the airport and the Federal Aviation Administration.

The old machines will be refurbished and sent to other airports, clearing the way for the airport to start work on installing new granite floors in the check-in areas, Browder said.

"With the machines out of the lobby, we'll have more space, including for seating, which is something we really need," she said.

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