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Airports are racing to install new screening equipment that would, at least in theory, leave the check-in process pretty much the same. But many airports are predicting they will not meet the deadline, and will have to take interim steps that could change check-in procedures dramatically.
Officials at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, for example, say that in March they proposed a consumer-friendly explosives detection system that would work seamlessly with their existing bag-checking system. But it required $195 million in construction, not including as many as 60 detection machines, which are the size of a minivan and cost nearly $1 million apiece. Like many airports, Dallas-Fort Worth is still waiting for the US Transportation Security Administration to approve its security plan and provide financing.
Ken Capps, spokesman for the airport, said federal approvals were needed back in April to have a chance of meeting the Dec. 31 deadline. ''It's an engineering and mathematical impossibility at most of the big airports,'' Capps said.
While the Dallas-Fort Worth airport and others are pushing Congress to delay the deadline, they will have to set up interim detection systems if that does not happen. The interim systems use bomb-sniffing dogs and smaller, $40,000 explosive trace detection systems that chemically analyze a swab sample taken from a bag to find explosive residues. These tests would have to be done before bags are checked, probably somewhere in the existing terminal area.
The interim measures have been deployed successfully in tests at a couple of smaller airports, but no one knows how they would work at a large airport. At Dallas-Fort Worth, which handles 55,000 checked bags a day, computer simulations have indicated there would be waits of three to four hours just to check a bag, with passengers crowded into airport lobbies, making vulnerable targets for terrorists.
''The customer service implications of an `interim solution' not only bring about new security risks, but probably persuade people just to quit flying altogether because of the hassle factor,'' Capps said.
Heather Rosenker, a spokeswoman for the Transportation Security Administration, acknowledged that the logistics of building and installing the explosives detection systems make compliance with the deadline difficult for many airports unless the interim measures are deployed. She said delays are possible with the interim measures, but not a given.
''I don't believe any of us should speculate,'' Rosenker said, noting that pilot projects in Norfolk, Va., and at Dallas's Love Field indicated the interim measures worked well without causing big delays.
The airports serving Eastern Massachusetts - Boston's Logan International, T. F. Green in Warwick, R.I., and Manchester Airport in New Hampshire - all say they expect to meet the deadline by installing explosives detection systems that work in conjunction with existing check-in procedures. Logan is spending $140 million and working around the clock to reconfigure its bag-checking system; so far it has been reimbursed only $30 million by the federal government.
Officials at Logan, Manchester, and Green say their customers should see little change in check-in procedures once the systems are operating, but that may be wishful thinking.
True, passengers will continue to check their bags as they do now, with skycaps or at airline check-in counters. From there, the bags would first go through a machine that would use computer-aided tomography, or CAT, scans to analyze the contents. If nothing suspicious is detected, the bag would be loaded onto the plane. If something is detected, the bag would go through a second machine for further analysis. If questions still remain, an inspection by hand would be done.
It doesn't take much imagination to see how this process could become bogged down. While highly sophisticated, the explosives detection systems may have difficulty distinguishing between a bomb and a ham sandwich wrapped in aluminum foil, officials say. Hand inspections are another concern. Should they be done with the passenger present? Federal officials are still trying to decide.
Bill Fife, director of aviation projects for DMJM+Harris, the company that designed the Logan security system, said the new procedures will require passengers to think more carefully about what they put in their checked bags. Film, for example, would be ruined by the powerful new machines. He said many harmless substances, like chocolate or honey, theoretically could be misread by the detection systems.
Air traffic off
All three airports serving Eastern Massachusetts continued to struggle in August, with Manchester Airport faring best.
Manchester passenger traffic was off 2.16 percent in August, but remained up 1 percent for the year so far. Logan was off 13.7 percent in August, and 15.6 percent for the year. The decline at Green seemed to be increasing. Passenger traffic was off 10 percent in August and 7 percent for the year.
Bruce Mohl can be reached at mohl@globe.com.