Airport queuing tedious, even for patriots

By RICHARD KELLY

SAN FRANCISCO - In the weeks after the September 11 attacks Americans waited in airport security lines and with patriotic unity, claiming to be unconcerned by delays.

That was then. Now, airlines concede, such delays are a huge concern.

Their most prized passengers, first-class and frequent business flyers, want nothing to do with the tedious waits of the security line and four of the top five United States carriers are now ushering them to newly created express lines.

The airlines have plenty at stake. Corporate travel is the backbone of the industry - business flyers account for 40 per cent of passengers and about 70 per cent of revenue.

They are people who already spend tremendous amounts of time in airports and are loath to waste any more time in them.

Industry surveys show that about 25 per cent of business travellers have cut back on trips because of the bottlenecks.

Because security is in the hands of the airlines, the express lines have received little criticism, but when the Government takes them over next month the notion of equity is likely to emerge.

After all, should the Government be in the business of offering preferential treatment to the airlines' favourite customers?

"That's something we'll have to work through," says Kurt Ebenhoch, spokesman for Northwest Airlines, which established express lines last month.

A likely development will be a national flyer identification programme, possibly administered by both the Government and the airlines, which will pre-screen low-risk passengers.

The programme is expected to be open to anyone, but in all likelihood, only the most frequent and well-heeled passengers (those willing to pay a special fee) will apply.

Whether they will be subject to less rigorous searches remains to be seen, but to guard against counterfeiting or theft, the cards will almost certainly be encoded for biometric verification using fingerprint, facial or iris scanning.

There are privacy concerns about the database that will be amassed.

Will the airlines have access? How will they be allowed to use the information? Could it be sold or stolen?

Further, the technology for confirming identity, though advanced, remains flawed. For example, the facial recognition technology used by police in surveillance has been found to yield many false reports.

But the system does offer security advantages because by "pre-screening" frequent flyers, officials can narrow their focus.

"It will separate airline passengers into two groups," said David Stempler, president of the Air Travellers Association. "The known and the unknown."

The alternative is the difficult task of treating 640 million passengers the same.