Searching for imaginary threats is very expensive. You have to pay $4.50 extra on each plane ticket so these thugs can search your bags. Wow! In 15 minutes they seizes a lighter and a snub-nosed pair of scissors. Original Article Spotting threats takes keen eyes Nearly 1,000 screeners work at Sky Harbor Ginger D. Richardson The Arizona Republic Oct. 31, 2005 12:00 AM On the screen, the grainy, black and white image doesn't look like much - just a bunch of dense oval objects clumped together. But it's enough to set off an alarm inside the massive baggage-screening machine, so Tracey Ingalls, an officer with the Transportation Security Administration, takes a closer look. "Dates," she pronounces. "I bet it's some kind of food." The luggage is pulled aside and hand-searched. Piles of clothes, CDs, makeup bags and other assorted items are stacked neatly in a pile as agents search for the offending item. Sure enough, at the bottom of the suitcase is a bag of nuts. It's a scene that is repeated time and time again in the basements of all three terminals at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, where security screeners spend hours staring at murky images, trying to determine whether something dangerous is buried deep within a piece of checked luggage. The job isn't always a glamorous one, but those who do it say they love it. "My greatest thrill is catching something," said screening supervisor Walter Farris. "That's what I am here to do." Starting pay for TSA screeners is about $28,000; the average employee makes about $32,000, said Paul Armes, the TSA's acting federal security director assigned to Sky Harbor. Training is paramount. Employees are required to have three hours of training each week and must be recertified every year. On this day, it's not that busy at the Terminal 2 checked-baggage screening center, but the employees are still hustling. The machine appears to alarm on every fourth or fifth bag, and screeners spend a lot of time checking those pieces of luggage for explosives or digging up lock cutters so they can open a bag and examine its contents. Sometimes they find dates. Other times they find drugs. Occasionally, the TSA's software program flashes an image of a phantom bag containing a potentially dangerous item. The image, called a TIP, is designed to test screeners' alertness and their adeptness at catching prohibited articles. The agency uses the results to monitor how its employees are doing and to identify those who might need additional training. There are nearly 1,000 TSA screeners assigned to Sky Harbor. Some are trained solely to analyze checked baggage, where the focus is primarily on explosives. Others spend their time at the passenger checkpoints, where they look for prohibited items like knives, guns and lighters, in addition to bombs. A few agents are trained to do both jobs. Ingalls is one of them. The 32-year-old north Phoenix resident used to style hair. But she decided to get a job with the TSA after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks because she said "she wanted to do something for the country." Now she works nights at Sky Harbor. The job can be tough, she said, particularly at the passenger security checkpoints where the scene is always noisy and chaotic. In fact, agents who work there rotate every 30 minutes so fresh eyes are always looking at the X-ray machines. In a 15-minute period, one screener catches two TIP images, a lighter and what appears to be a snub-nosed pair of scissors. Two bags have to be rescreened; a third must be hand-checked. "You really have to be on the ball here," Ingalls said. "There's passengers, and kids screaming, a constant flow of people. "You really have to be able to focus." Reach the reporter at ginger.richardson@arizonarepublic.com or (602) 444-2474. http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/1031baggage31.html Baggage system to ease air travel Sky Harbor installing technology Ginger D. Richardson The Arizona Republic Oct. 31, 2005 12:00 AM Work has begun on a new baggage system at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport that is supposed to make traveling as easy as it was before extra security layers were added after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The $120 million conveyer-belt system is designed to speed travelers through the security screening process and eliminate the need for passengers or security agents to carry large pieces of luggage through different sections of the airport. It also will move the baggage screening process out of congested public areas. Sky Harbor is one of only nine airports around the country that has received federal approval to install the new technology. Of those, only three - Denver, Dallas/Fort Worth and Boston Logan - actually have portions of the automated baggage systems up and running. Phoenix Aviation Director David Krietor described the current screening process, which requires security to hand-feed heaps of piled luggage into large machines scattered throughout ticketing areas, as a "customer service nightmare." "Once we get this in place, it will be much easier for passengers, much more seamless, just much better," he said. The new system should be done by summer 2007, though some parts will be up and running long before then. Sky Harbor officials are withholding some key details about the automated system for security reasons and won't say which sections will come on line first. It's likely most passengers won't know it's there, and that is the whole point. Travelers will simply arrive at the airport, hand their bags to a ticket agent or skycap working curbside and proceed to the gate. They no longer will be required to check in with the airline and then lug their bags to one of the van-sized security machines. The new system will work like this: Bags will travel from the individual airline's check-in areas along a vast series of conveyor belts to the bowels of the terminal. Those individual airline conveyer systems then feed to a central screening area, in many cases located in a new, high-security building next to the terminal. Think of it like an octopus. The individual arms represent the conveyors systems operated by each of the airlines at the terminal. Luggage travels along them to the screening center. Conveyor belts then feed the luggage through a high-resolution X-ray machine that gives screeners a better view of what is inside them. Bags that appear suspicious are diverted to a special "mitigation" room where they are checked for explosives, said Paul Armes, Sky Harbor's acting federal security director. Because the new system is completely automated, it will be much faster and more efficient than the existing process, which relies heavily on manual labor. Computers and sensors control how fast the bags are moved along the belt and automatically scan luggage tags so the baggage can be sent from the screening area to the proper airline's conveyor system. The time it takes from when you hand your bag to someone to it being loaded on the plane is expected to be less than 20 minutes. "That is for the bag where everything goes wrong," said Shane Shovestull, a civil engineer at Sky Harbor and project manager for the new system. "Typically, we think it will be faster than that." The airport screens as many as 45,000 bags a day. Sky Harbor will pay for the new system with a combination of city and federal money. Under an agreement with the Transportation Security Administration, Sky Harbor will front the money for the entire project but should be reimbursed for about $91.5 million of the conveyor system's cost over four years. The federal funding must be approved by Congress each year in order to be included in the federal budget. The first $13 million in funding was approved in 2004; Congress also appropriated nearly $26.2 million this year. Sky Harbor hopes to receive $26.2 million in both 2006 and 2007, airport spokeswoman Julie Rodriguez said. Travelers will foot the bill for the city's share via a $4.50 fee tacked onto each airline ticket. But the $120 million price tag only covers the conveyors. The TSA is expected to spend an additional $30 million to $35 million on new screening machines that are integrated into the system, said Nico Melendez, an agency spokesman. Airport officials like the technology because they believe it will free up space in the congested ticketing areas and also will improve wait times at passenger checkpoints. That is because the system could allow the TSA to reallocate personnel from baggage screening to passenger screening. Having more passenger screeners at Sky Harbor is crucial because security-checkpoint wait times tend to increase during peak morning and afternoon hours. Additional staffing could help with the backlogs. Airport officials in both Dallas/Fort Worth and Denver say the automated technology has already proved popular with passengers. "The old system was very labor intensive and not good for our customers," said Jim Crites, executive vice president for operations at Dallas/Fort Worth International, where the baggage system came on line in three of five terminals earlier this year. The system there cost well more than $200 million, officials estimate. In Denver, the technology has been operating smoothly since construction was completed in March 2004. Both the airlines and passengers seem to like it, said Chuck Cannon, an airport spokesman. Frequent flyers here are looking forward to it. "I do think it would make it easier," Rich Matsuoka said as he waited to have his luggage screened last week. "It would definitely be better than this." Reach the reporter at ginger.richardson@arizonarepublic.com or (602) 444-2474. These are the items seizes at Sky Harbor Airport since June 1. Dont you feed 100,000 times safer when these idiots search you and your baggage? 92,000 lighters 23,000 sharp objects (including ice picks) 14,000 knifes with blades less then 3 inches 10,500 tools 368 clubs, bats, bludgeons 350 knifes with blades over 3 inches long 190 fake guns (these are the really dangerous ones) 185 box cutters 169 annunition and gunpowder 55 fireworks