I haven't flown since Sept. 1980 and don't plan on ever doing it again.

Changes are coming to airport security checkpoints: TSA wants you to declutter your bags.

New procedures, such as requiring all food or all electronics larger than cellphones be placed in bins separately, are still being tested. Changes haven't yet been finalized, but senior Transportation Security Administration officials agreed to discuss them publicly for the first time. Decisions will be made in a few weeks, with new rules implemented after the summer travel rush, once screeners are trained and announcements made.

Tests began at small airports like Colorado Springs, Colo., Boise, Idaho and Lubbock, Texas. Travelers have since run into them in Los Angeles, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Boston, Detroit, Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Many have been confused by unusual procedures. In Kansas City, Mo., in early May, screeners forced passengers to remove all paper from bags, down to notepads. That test didn’t go well and was halted after a few days, TSA says.

“It has to be efficient and it has to be effective,” says Darby LaJoye, assistant administrator for security operations. “We are far enough along that I am very optimistic that what we are piloting is working.”

Airline baggage fees prompt travelers to load up carry-on cases, which has created problems at X-ray machines. Pictures of the insides of overstuffed bags take more time to read. Screeners must be able to identify each item in the bag—anything that can’t be cleared as safe has to get manually checked, officials say.

Forcing travelers to dump more out of bags, sometimes without warning, will likely confuse and anger fliers until they get used to new rules. TSA figures lines won’t lengthen because the total time at the checkpoint will be the same. Tests have shown TSA can slow down the process of decluttering bags at the start of security, known as divesting, but gain the time back by speeding up X-ray reading and reducing manual bag checks.

TSA says new procedures likely will be confined to standard screening lines and not PreCheck lanes, where trusted travelers get expedited screening and get to leave more items in bags.

Mr. LaJoye says TSA has been considering changes at X-ray machines for about 18 months. “It is not any one particular item we’re worried about. It’s not about paper or food or anything. It’s how best to divest those items,” he says.

Based on pilot-program results, he says officers likely will focus more on travelers when they first start hoisting their bags on tables for the X-ray machine, asking them to remove items and put them in separate bins.

Those items could change line by line, airport by airport. Compliance will be optional, TSA officials say, but not complying may lead to opening a bag for manual inspection.

When checkpoints are busy under current rules, bags pile up waiting for manually screening, and lines can get long. “The more items in a bag, the more complicated it becomes,” says a TSA explosives specialist involved in the pilot program.

To demonstrate, he runs a bag packed with all kinds of electronics and food items through an X-ray machine at Washington’s Reagan National Airport, followed by an uncluttered bag with clothes, a quart-sized bag of toiletries and paperback book.

TSA’s X-ray displays color items in bags by their density—most stuff is orange, blue and turquoise more dense, metal shows up as black.

The cluttered bag appears on the screen looking like a kindergarten art project gone haywire. With the uncluttered bag, shapes are easy to identify. Even if the cluttered bag doesn’t get pulled out for manual checking, it takes the screener more time to study the image.

“There’s not any one thing in that bag that says red flag. But there’s so much going on it takes time to figure out what it is,” the explosives specialist says.

Food can trigger lots of false alarms because of the density of some items. Chocolate, for example, can look like some types of explosives to X-ray machines. Lots of paper can obscure items—thick books or stacks of books sometimes require manual checks. In Houston in February, TSA found Super Bowl programs created lots of false alarms because they were thick with heavy-stock paper and had reflective holograms.

TSA has been criticized in the past for missing weapons in undercover government tests. Travel groups and security consultants say there is a need for some randomness and unpredictability in security, but increasing hassle just frustrates people.

“It’s all about how you do it,” says Mike McCormick, executive director of the Global Business Travel Association, an organization of corporate travel managers. “We run the risk of, certainly for the U.S., of creating an environment that is really bad for business.”

TSA says it is asking airlines to step up enforcement of the two-item limit—one bag in an overhead bin and one under the seat.

Trans-Atlantic travelers may face other restrictions, such as expanding a cabin laptop ban from select Middle East and Persian Gulf airports to all flights from Europe. But a full ban, which may be hard to enforce at many European airports on flights bound for the U.S., is hardly a sure thing. The airline industry is lobbying for alternative measures.

Another change starting to roll out: TSA will begin using machines to verify ID instead of officers manually studying passports and driver’s licenses. The ID verification machine testing will start at Washington Dulles Airport later this month, then spread to Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Austin, Texas and Washington Reagan Airport. Full rollout should take about two years.

The machine checks for fake IDs and matches up names with passenger lists—no boarding pass will be needed at the TSA checkpoints when the machine is in use. Officers can still clear someone manually if a false alarm is triggered.

TSA tested the technology with a shipment of fake IDs out of China that was intercepted by customs officials.



https://www.wsj.com/articles/g...-security-1495640411

This is going to be a cluster. There always seems to be alot of stupid people who fly. Understanding the TSA rules is a mess now for many people. I can only see more fun with these changes.

Glad to see is this shouldn't effect the pre-check lines.

Maybe if these goddam airlines would give up the $50 or so to check a bag, this wouldn't be such a problem.

I saw this firsthand recently flying from Philly to Tennessee, its like NO ONE checks a bag anymore and they all crowd around the gate loaded up with all kinds of huge bags and suitcases that shouldn't even be allowed as carry-on.

Anything they touch will turn into a giant clusterfuck. My ass these changes result in lines not getting longer.

Just frickin ban carry ons and be done with it. Nothing to check, no dumb morons trying to stuff a mattress into an overhead. That's where it's going anyway.

Glad to hear. {Sarcasm}. Anything to keep the flying public upset.

My January trip to the UK was a PITA in Heathrow. They really don't like backpacks/briefcases full of wires, DC transformers, etc. and wanted me to pull it all out. I noticed other travelers keep that stuff in a pull out mesh bag, and I've begun doing the same.

I would not be surprised to see that be one of the things the TSA rolls out.

I traveled multiple times per week from 1976 through 1986. The two most unusual things I ever saw were 1: a guy tried to get on the plane, (in fact he had it in the front door before he was stopped) with a chromed automobile bumper which looked like it would have been for about a 1955 Chevy! and 2: a guy running down the hall way to the gate carrying a back pack style parachute! I never saw what happened with him.

One more reason to have TSA Pre

I just got my pre approval this week.

It's all theater. I hate flying. Glad I'm retired as I flew once a week for work.

quote:

Originally posted by Rightwire:
One more reason to have TSA Pre

Yep. Best perk I ever got from work.

quote:

One more reason to have TSA Pre

So TSA is so frustrating that you give the government permission to investigate your life in ways they wouldn't be able to without your permission.

...but that's not the point of the whole exercise or anything.

For those of required to fly as part of a job, arghhh. TSA Pre is becoming its own cluster with more participants. The only people with clout are the ones with a comfort animals...

That certainly draws a vacuum.

quote:

Originally posted by tanksoldier:

quote:

One more reason to have TSA Pre

So TSA is so frustrating that you give the government permission to investigate your life in ways they wouldn't be able to without your permission.

...but that's not the point of the whole exercise or anything.

I'm a hockey coach, the year I applied for TSA Pre I was background checked by 3 different leagues, adding the TSA didn't seem to be a big deal.

I had a choice given that I travel 3-4 times a month. I could be frustrated and pissed off every time I fly because of the rules that you have to obey when you fly. OR I could let them check me just like everyone else that year and walk though airport security in minutes.

I'm not aware that Law Enforcement needs my permission to see if I have a criminal background or not. In fact, I believe that is where the information for the background checks originates.

The Tub Stacking Assholes are preparing to further restrict traveller's ability to get into Precheck, Global Entry, and related programs. I did the whole smash, Global Entry with the business visa waiver for the Pacific Rim, and it was the best $170 I've spent on travelling in a long time, even if it means they get to dig into my life (which was done before for clearances and my FFL)

With these new procedures, and fewer people getting Precheck etc. expect massively long lines this summer with no further enhancement of security.

So... Air travel currently:
1- Outrageous ticket costs. And checked bag fees.
2- Stupid routing. Of course I want visit Buffalo. For 45 minutes. Enroute from MI to TX.
3- It rained. Flight cancelled. Extended tour of Buffalo!
4- TSA. An amazing mix of incompetency, inefficiency and ever changing rules. Take off your shoes!
5- Overbooked flight? Get off voluntarily or a beat down! Oh... We will give you some cash so you can fly again.
6- Share a cramped aluminum tube with drunks and therapy turkeys. And the turkey is the nicest of your fellow passengers. And the cleanest and best behaved.
7- Several hundred miles at altitude with multiple screaming babies.
8- Reach for in flight magazine from seat pouch and neatly folded dirty diaper pops out and falls on your feet. Yep, happened to me!
9- Airline travel idiot specific talent: the ability to stuff an engine block into an overhead bin.
10- Cabin crew so fed up with idiot passengers that they have reach a new level of pissed off.
Enjoy your flight!

I will rent a car and drive. If it kills me.

quote:

“It has to be efficient and it has to be effective,” says Darby LaJoye, assistant administrator for security operations.

Then my suggestion would be to pack it in and close down shop because absolutely nothing the TSA does is efficient or effective. How many hijackers/terrorists have these clowns found and stopped? And when the TSA was recently audited didn't they fail spectacularly? Yeah, no thank you. The only things these clowns can successfully accomplish is to feel up children and steal the electronics from your checked bags.

Yeah, when the geniuses at the airlines decided to charge you $50 per checked bag they thought it wouldn't affect carry on luggage and boarding time. Now the TSA wants people to separate out paper and any electronics larger than a cell phone. But it won't slow down the security theater lines, it will make things faster and make it easier for them to do their jobs (which they fail at 90% of the time, or more). How about we just hire a security contractor that knows what they are doing, fix the checked luggage handling systems and tell the airlines they can't charge an additional $50 for every piece of checked luggage. Oh, and let flyers with CCW permits fly with weapons.