LAX Resigned to Long Lines, Despite Cloud of Terrorism
Despite warnings by security experts that long lines at Los Angeles International Airport are vulnerable to a terrorist attack, airport officials have concluded that the staff cannot be added to significantly shorten queues in the next few years.
Rand Corp. recommended last fall that airlines and federal officials hire more people to speed travelers from sidewalks and terminal lobbies into the more secure gate areas as the quickest and cheapest way to protect LAX passengers.
But in documents obtained by The Times, the airport's top official advised the City Council that a third more airline workers and screeners would be needed -- an increase that's not feasible. And even if cash-strapped airlines could hire additional staff, there wouldn't be enough ticket counter space for them, airport officials said.
But Rand insisted that the urgency of reducing lines at the world's fifth-busiest airport remained.
"It's still the recommended thing to do," said Donald Stevens, a senior engineer at Rand and lead author of the Santa Monica-based research institute's September study.
Long lines at airports are "the single greatest vulnerability that we have in the domestic U.S. at the moment," said aviation consultant Billie Vincent, a former Federal Aviation Administration security chief.
The General Accounting Office released a report this week that said heightened screening procedures and truck-sized explosives-detection machines in airport lobbies -- added after 9/11 -- had created crowds that put passengers at risk.
"In the '70s, gangs in Europe entered airports and machine-gunned and killed people," said Stephen Van Beek, policy director for Airports Council International-North America. "Terrorists know if they did that today, it would be highly publicized."
The risk is acute at LAX, considered the state's top terrorist target.
Lines will decrease about 50% at LAX by 2008, airport officials say, after installation of a new $400-million luggage system that will allow the screening machines to be moved out of the terminal lobbies. Los Angeles International is one of the few airports to receive federal funding for such a project.
LAX officials said that although they didn't plan to implement some of Rand's suggestions, dealing with the airport lines remained a top priority.
