The world's busiest airport plans a major revamp of its sometimes-clogged security checkpoints, a $25 million upgrade that will create more lanes for screening passengers and could be operating by mid-summer.

"We are doing this on the fast track," Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport General Manager Ben DeCosta said Friday.

The airport currently has 28 security lanes, and by the end of the project will have 32.

The project will leave in place the main 22-lane security checkpoint near the atrium. It will create six additional lanes in the North Terminal T-Gate area and four new lanes in the South Terminal.

DeCosta said six relatively inefficient security lanes — the three current T-Gate lanes and three in the mezzanine — will close as part of the project. That means there will be a net gain of four security lanes, he said.

The airport has decided to postpone a decision on paid security lanes, but could revisit that idea in the future, DeCosta said.

About 86 million people a year pass through Hartsfield-Jackson; roughly a third of those either leave from Atlanta or their flights end here.

Airport officials want to keep waits in security lines to 20 minutes or less, but that has been a problem during peak times, like the morning rush and holidays.

DeCosta said the new lanes should help alleviate congestion at the checkpoints, but said there is no room to add more gates. The new gates should be operational by late July, he said.