Security crews ready; travelers wary of waits

By Mark Davis

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

For some travelers, the recent changes in airport security screening couldn’t come at a worse time. With the heaviest travel period of the year beginning Monday, airline passengers are bracing for long waits as federal officers pat down some people, put others in electronic scanning machines and place everyone under scrutiny.

Adding to their worries: Some passengers opposed to electronic scanners may boycott the scans, forcing officers to perform pat-downs. Long lines, they fear, could become even longer as travelers undergo the slower physical searches.

Their worries are unfounded, officials with the Transportation Security Administration said last week. The federal agency charged with airport safety will be fully staffed at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International and other airports across the country to handle millions of travelers, they said. The measures, TSA officials said, won’t snarl travelers at security gates.

Perhaps not, said Tim Pearch of Fayetteville, who waited in a line 12 people deep before he passed through security at Hartsfield-Jackson on a recent evening. But he’s not coming to the nation’s busiest airport to see for himself.

“I won’t be going through Atlanta, not next week,” Texan Steve Stuart said, slipping on shoes he removed to pass through security. “Monday morning, it’ll be a mob” at the airport.

A mob that’s guaranteed to get larger as the days tick down to Thursday, Thanksgiving Day. Last year, the Atlanta airport estimated that 1.75 million people passed through the airport from the Tuesday before Thanksgiving until the Monday afterward. That number represented nearly a third of all passenger traffic for the month.

Nationwide, an estimated 24 million passengers are flying during the holiday period, the Air Transport Association of America estimated. The ATA, the trade association for the nation’s largest airlines, anticipates a 3.5 percent increase in Thanksgiving travelers this year over the same period in 2009.

Stuart expects headaches for anyone waiting to board an airplane at the Atlanta airport. Last week, the Dallas resident came to Atlanta for a sales meeting, where the topic turned to the airport’s security procedures.

“It’s made us take a look at our flying plans” for Thanksgiving week, said Stuart, who flies to Atlanta about five times a year. “We’ll probably have to allow an extra hour, an hour-and-a-half, because of security.”

Not that he’s complaining, said Stuart, 41.

“If this is an extra step to secure our nation,” he said, “I’m all for it.”

The TSA says it is. The agency also says it’s ready for a crush of travelers.

Invasion of privacy?

TSA officers, who scrutinize tickets and operate security systems at the nation’s airports, won’t be taking many days off this coming week, said Jon Allen, an Atlanta spokesman for the federal agency. It’s planning to have a full staff at Hartsfield-Jackson during the Thanksgiving period, he said.

The TSA has handled airport security since the agency’s creation after the 2001 terror attacks. Its officers have been operating full-body electronic scanners for two years. Critics say the machinery, which peers through clothing, are an invasion of privacy. They’re installed at 68 airports nationwide.

Anyone declining the body scan, or who sets off a metal detector, may undergo a physical search that includes officers reaching into waistbands, or touching breasts and other sensitive areas. Critics of the searches say the TSA needs to adopt a more hands-off policy.

The automated scanners also have opponents, perhaps none more vocal than Brian Sodegren, an Ashburn, Va., resident who recently started a website, www.optoutday.com, calling on travelers to boycott scanners on America’s busiest travel day. A Facebook page supporting the boycott has a pointed mission statement:

“The goal of National Opt Out Day is to force change on the TSA and get the travel industry working for us,” it reads. “Opting out will overwhelm the TSA rent-a-gropers and force the roll back of both the porno scanners and the enhanced groping.”

Sodegren said his aim is to get the TSA to change its practices, not to inconvenience travelers. “I think the agency is professional enough to handle an increased passenger load, as happens around the holidays,” he wrote in an e-mail.

Sodegren’s boycott would make travel more confusing for people who rarely fly, said Charlie Leocha, director of the lobbying group Consumer Travel Alliance. “It will punish people who only travel once a year,” he said.

‘Staying here’

Linda Dewberry recently declined a TSA officer’s request that she remove her jacket. The blouse underneath, the Clarkesville resident said, was made of see-through material. He directed her to a spot where a female colleague wearing blue, latex gloves gave her a thorough pat-down. Others waiting to pass through security watched the procedure, which took about a minute.

“It’s no big deal,” said Dewberry, who had a security pass to accompany her son, Justin Hicks, to a waiting airplane that would take the 18-year-old Army recruit to training at Fort Carson, Colo.

It would be a bigger deal if she planned on flying at Thanksgiving, Dewberry added. “I’m staying here,” said Dewberry, whose home is in Habersham County.

Sallie Elam planned to stay out of airports, too. Last week, she was heading back to her home in Washington, D.C., after a business trip to Atlanta. A frequent flier, Elam said she supports the security measures the TSA has in place. But that doesn’t mean they’re pleasant, or quick.

“It’s something we need to do,” she said.

Becca Griesemer, heading back to Miami after visiting her boyfriend in Atlanta, agreed that the searches are a nuisance. “But it’s something I’d rather them do than not do, you know?”

She is a regular Hartsfield-Jackson traveler and knows the routine: shoes off, liquids in a plastic bag, remove metal objects from pockets.

She also knows that a trip through security can be a journey in itself.

“Next week,” she said, “I won’t be flying to Atlanta.”