Cautious skies

By Matthew Barrows -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 a.m. PDT Sunday, Sept. 8, 2002

Of all the changes since Sept. 11, the most noticeable have been in American airports, where aviation officials suddenly were faced with a Herculean task: Tighten a security system that long had been criticized as hopelessly slack.

	Air travelers wind through the queue, above, to the Southwest Airlines counter at Sacramento International Airport. Sacramento Bee/Jay Mather

You might be asked to show your identification up to six times before boarding the plane. You must relinquish everything from cuticle scissors to new golf clubs. And you can forget about kissing your sweetheart goodbye at the gate - only ticketed passengers are allowed there now.

Of all the changes since Sept. 11, the most noticeable have been in American airports, where aviation officials suddenly were faced with a Herculean task: Tighten a security system that long had been criticized as hopelessly slack. And do so in little more than a year.

The hijacking of four flights on one Tuesday morning brought steel bars to cockpit doors, new life to the nearly defunct federal air marshal program and more vigorous and frequent searches of passengers and their bags.

But the biggest concern among most passengers nowadays isn't a stranger in rubber gloves rifling through their luggage. It's that the security changes haven't happened fast enough.

"Right after 9/11, you could see where they were doing a better job," said Don Morley, after flying into Sacramento International Airport. "Right now, they're pretty much the same as before."

The agency created to guard passengers against another terrorist attack, the Transportation Security Administration, is charged with replacing private security workers by Nov. 19 with an estimated 60,000 federally trained employees.

	Random body searches are possible, as Ashlee Sullivan of Orangevale discovers. Sacramento Bee/Jay Mather

Critics say it's a deadline the agency is unlikely to meet. So far, just 23,600 screeners have been hired, and in many airports the same underpaid and undertrained crews that were screening passengers last year are still working today.

"I don't think (passengers) are unhappy that they are being searched," said Dean Headly, a Wichita State University professor who monitors the airline industry.

"I think they're unhappy that the person searching them in September of last year is the same person ... searching them in September this year."

When federal agents tested airport security in June, the fake guns, bombs and other weapons they attempted to smuggle through were missed an average 24 percent of the time.

Sacramento International was rated the nation's fifth-worst airport, with weapons passing through 40 percent of the time.

Such results were a blow to airports struggling to win back passengers.

During the first six months of 2002, passenger traffic on major airlines was down 11 percent from 2001, according to the Air Transport Association. California's two busiest airports, in Los Angeles and San Francisco, saw passenger counts drop by 17 percent. San Jose International lost 16 percent.

Sacramento International had a slight dip after the attacks but began seeing growth again in May. Airport officials attribute that success to their major carrier, Southwest Airlines, which unlike other major carriers did not cut flights after Sept. 11.

Those hesitant to return to the air cite everything from a new fear of flying to wanting to avoid more stringent security.

	The security staff has seized more than 3 tons of illegal items since the airport reopened after Sept. 11 - including box cutters and handcuffs. Sacramento Bee/Jay Mather

Some have found other options.

Jeff Batozech, a Sacramento businessman, said he routinely flew to his home office in Albany, Ore., before Sept. 11. Since the disaster, he prefers the eight-hour drive up Interstate 5.

"I figure it's a five-hour flight when you take into account the drive to the airport, the wait in lines and the trip itself," he said.

Other passengers said they were glad to trade pre-Sept. 11 convenience for more safety, but expressed frustration with inconsistencies.

The resulting irritation has contributed to a waning in the angelic attitudes passengers brought to the airports in the months after Sept. 11. Consumer complaints logged by the U.S. Department of Transportation that decreased sharply in the fall have begun to creep back to 2001 levels.

Passenger Noel Connor wondered why her silver necklace set off a metal detector in San Diego but not in Sacramento. Another flier noted that a book bag considered a personal item in Las Vegas - and allowed to be carried onto the plane - had to be checked at a Florida airport.

And passenger Gail Dambak questioned whether many of the items being confiscated at screening stations - airports continue to fill buckets each week - were really a threat to air security.

Dambak said she was searched from head to Birkenstocks after screeners discovered cuticle scissors in her bag.

"As if I could do damage with a cuticle scissor," she said.

Some passengers said that even the latest technology and highly trained security force won't be foolproof. In the past year, so-called "defensive flying" classes have been offered to those still wary about airport security.

One of them, offered by Roseville-based Flight Watch America, teaches fliers how to help thwart an attack at 35,000 feet and which tools - belts, seat cushions and hot tea - can be used to a passenger's advantage.

Founder Don Detrich said he has held a handful of classes, at a cost of about $250 a person, mostly to corporate audiences with many frequent fliers.

Detrich said the course was inspired by the passengers aboard United Flight 93, who on the morning of Sept. 11 took on the hijackers. The flight crashed in rural Pennsylvania, never reaching its target.

"Airport security was full of holes back then, and guess what - it's still full of holes," Detrich said. "The passengers are still the last line of defense."