By Calvin Biesecker
The head of the largest advocacy group for the nation’s airports is asking congressional appropriators to direct the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to pay for any costs airports may incur related to the installation of whole body imaging systems currently being deployed at aviation security checkpoints.
TSA has already said it won’t pay for terminal modifications or space acquisitions related to the deployment of the Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT) systems, Charles “Chip” Barclay, wrote in a letter yesterday to Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) and Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.), the respective chairmen of the Senate and House Appropriations Committees. Barclay is the president of the American Association of Airport Executives (AAAE).
“As you continue work on the FY 2011 DHS spending bill, we respectfully ask that you require TSA to pay for terminal modifications and space necessary to deploy AIT equipment in airports,” Barclay wrote. “At many airports with space and financial constraints, federal funding is absolutely essential if these important security upgrades are to move forward.”
Barclay said not all airports will suffer costs related to AIT installations but that some critical airports will.
“It is evident, however, that placing new equipment, building image viewing rooms, and accommodating teams of new personnel in already crammed checkpoint screening areas will be difficult if not impossible at some critical airports,” Barclay said. “TSA has acknowledged that the agency will face challenges, particularly in 2011 as the agency moves toward the end of its planned deployment schedule.”
In March, the acting head of TSA, Gale Rossides, told Congress that the deployments of AIT machines this year aren’t expected to impose significant construction issue on those airports (Defense Daily, March 10). TSA plans to have 490 AIT machines deployed at airports by the end of this year.
Airports generally agree that the costs for this year’s deployments aren’t expected to be problematic.
However, at Reno-Tahoe Airport in Nevada, the president of the airport authority is asking TSA to postpone a planned deployment this summer of OSI Systems [OSIS] Secure 1000 backscatter X-Ray based AIT system. That’s due to privacy concerns and space constraints in the airport’s security checkpoint, Krys Bart is quoted as saying in the May 23 Reno-Gazette Journal.
In addition to the OSI Systems AIT machine, TSA is procuring the ProVision millimeter wave-based AIT systems from L-3 Communications [LLL]. The agency plans to procure and deploy 500 more AIT machines in 2011.
In his letter to Inouye and Obey, Barclay said that airport executives do support the AIT deployments and appreciate initial outreach efforts by TSA. However, the airports also are concerned with passenger processing times associated with the AIT systems.
Rossides in her March testimony said that passenger wait times would barely be affected by the machines.