Las Vegas Airport begins a self-screening security line.
The Transportation Safety Administration has selected Sin City as the first airport in the country to adopt a self-service security screening system. Passengers (who are already part of the TSA’s Pre Check program) will be able to start using it Monday.
Despite the moniker, TSA personnel will still very much be a part of the procedure, although travelers will have fewer interactions with them. You’ll still have to clear an ID check with the TSA, and if you’re suspected of having a forbidden item, they’ll do the pat-downs. But passengers will scan their own baggage and themselves.
The new system will take up two lanes at Harry Reid International Airport, and you’ll only be allowed to use it between 5:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. initially. The TSA might send some non-Pre Check travelers to the new screeners, but minors under 12 will not be allowed to utilize them.
That could shorten the lines, but the objective of the new screening service is to make the checkpoint a more pleasant experience, Homeland Security officials say. That will mean a few more modifications.
Passengers who use the self-screening stations, for instance, will put all of their belongings in a single container rather than, say, outerwear in one tray and electronics in another. If the system sees something that raises a flag, it will divert the bat to a TSA officer. (If the system suspects a weapon, it diverts the bag to a locked compartment, where the passenger cannot recover it.) Cleared luggage goes directly back to passengers, as they do on ordinary screening procedures. An onscreen avatar, meanwhile, will let you know how to stand and correct you if you’re in the wrong position before it scans you for suspicious objects on your person.
The test phase of the new technology is not fixed in stone. It might be pushed out on a bigger scale within a few months or it could be more than a year.
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