LAS VEGAS — Select passengers will be able to try out a new self-service screening system at an airport in Nevada from the Transportation Security Administration.
A new self-service screening system is expected to start in January at the Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
“Like self-ordering kiosks at fast food and sit-down restaurants, self-service screening allows passengers in the Trusted Traveler Program to complete the security screening process on their own,” Screening at Speed Program Manager John Fortune said. “Travelers will use passenger and carry-on screening systems at individual consoles or screening lanes themselves, reducing the number of pat-downs and bag inspections TSOs need to perform and freeing their time to be reallocated to the busier aspects of screening operations. The feedback we’ve already received during testing from both mock passengers and TSOs has been incredibly positive.”
Passengers with PreCheck will able to “assume several responsibilities” that TSA officers handle, according to the Washington Post.
“The passenger self-service screening technology aims to keep travelers and TSOs safer by minimizing person-to-person contact, reducing the number of bags TSOs have to pick up and move around and allowing passengers to proceed at their own pace,” Fortune said, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
“The ultimate goal of this is that it is all one-stop,” said Jeffrey C. Price, a professor of aviation and aerospace at Metropolitan State University of Denver, according to The Washington Post. “You go in and you show your ID. It scans you, it scans your bags, you leave your little kiosk and off you go to the plane.”
The new program will be in a few lanes at the Harry Reid International Airport. That airport, according to the newspaper, is a test site for TSA innovations.
“A lot of these technologies allow the passenger to be more in control of their own journey through the checkpoint and be more self-sufficient without necessarily having to interact with an officer,” said T.J. Schulz, president of the Airport Consultants Council, an association that represents airport development companies, according to the Post. “This continues a trend of allowing the passenger to be self-reliant through the checkpoint and is very much in alignment with the whole airline travel passenger experience.”
