TSA’s New Tech Can Make Airport Screening Faster. Travelers Aren’t So Sure.

New scanners at airport security are better at detecting explosives and potential threats, plus they let you keep your laptop in your carry-on bag. Passengers say the new machines are also making for longer waits.

The Transportation Security Administration says its computed tomography, or CT, scanners will make airport security both stronger and faster, and holds that overall waits at its checkpoints aren’t longer with the new machines. Now in 228 U.S. airports, the machines create 3-D images of a bag’s contents while subjecting fewer travelers to extra bag searches. They take some getting used to as passengers are learning to put all their items in wide, flat bins rather than plopping their bags directly on a conveyor belt. 

In rare cases, waits at CT scanners have made passengers miss their flights, and frequent fliers say they are arriving at the airport earlier than usual to avoid mishaps.

The combination of a busy summer season and new equipment is the latest challenge for U.S. airports, where record numbers of travelers are passing through security checkpoints. TSA officials now recommend travelers get to the airport two to three hours before flights. 

TSA is installing the new scanners as soon as they are ready, rather than waiting for a slower season, says the agency’s head, David Pekoske. Intelligence officials told TSA the technology, which is already used for checked luggage, is needed as quickly as possible for carry-on bags, too, he said. 

“There are fewer parts of the year where airports aren’t really busy,” he said.

TSA has nearly 750 CT machines scanning carry-ons, with 180 installed so far this year. Less than half of the country’s airport checkpoint lanes have the scanners, as part of a $341 million upgrade thus far. The goal is for all passengers to keep laptops and some liquids inside their bags, the agency says.

The CT scanner creates a 3-D image of a bag when it enters the machine. Agents can rotate images for more thorough screening without having to open the bag or call a passenger aside. While the image generation and analysis can take longer than with the old X-ray machines, TSA officials said the new tech isn’t changing overall wait times.

“TSA is under a tremendous learning curve as they get used to this new technology,” says Jeffrey Price, an aviation-security professor at the Metropolitan State University of Denver. Agents now receive more information from the scans, which means they’re relearning how to analyze images, he said. 

The passenger learning curve

Passengers have a learning curve, too. If shoes, hats and other loose items aren’t placed securely in bins, they can fall out and get stuck in the machines, several TSA agents said. 

The TSA monitors wait times at its checkpoints and has standards for what it considers acceptable—30 minutes or less for standard screening lanes, 10 minutes for PreCheck. Current waits fall within those limits, TSA says. (Pekoske says he is notified when PreCheck waits exceed 15 minutes.)

Frequent traveler Matt Kantz, from Muncie, Ind., says he is building in extra time for airport security, leaving 30 minutes earlier than usual. The 50-year-old sales director regularly flies out of Indianapolis, where he says waits in the TSA PreCheck lane are longer since the CT machines were installed earlier this year. He says it took more than 20 minutes to get through the PreCheck lane once in April and once in May. 

The first time, he says he nearly missed his flight. “It’s a stark difference between what it is and what it was,” he says.

TSA says wait times were longer than normal this spring as machines were being installed, but says its data doesn’t match Kantz’s account. The agency also noted the Indianapolis airport has seen record travel volumes.

Tech upgrades

One brand of the scanner, the Analogic, can switch offline when certain items pass through, requiring a system reboot and leading to downtimes, multiple TSA agents said. The agents asked not to be named to discuss details of their roles.

Analogic executives referred all comments to the TSA. 

Earlier this summer, officials at Texas’ Lubbock Preston Smith International Airport warned travelers that the new CT scanners slowed wait times and caused some people to miss their flights.

At first, the machines went offline several times a week, says

Pekoske says the TSA has better trained security officers to reset the machines. The agency is also updating the scanners’ software.

The airport experience

Airport directors say wait times will improve as passengers and agents adjust, and note that not having to repack bags after security is a plus.

“The scanning process is longer, but you’re not doing your recombobulating after the checkpoint,” says Lew Bleiweis, president and chief executive of the Asheville Regional Airport Authority in North Carolina.

In Atlanta, wait times are shorter with the CT system, TSA officials say. Secondary bag screens are also more targeted because agents no longer need to root around in bags.

Wait times at Syracuse Hancock International Airport have improved since the CT machines were introduced, Jason Terreri, executive director of the Syracuse Regional Airport Authority, says. In some cases, passengers move from the TSA PreCheck lane into the standard screening lane because the wait is shorter, he said. 

Improvements ahead

Passengers say they feel waits most acutely as they await bags at the end of the screening lane. But they’re not counting how much time they used to spend repacking those bags, Pekoske says. 

“When I’m doing something, I think time goes by a little quicker,” he says. “When I’m just waiting for something to come out of a tunnel, for example, in an X-ray, that time seems longer to me.”

TSA says things will get even faster in the future. Right now, agents sit next to the machines and monitor every bag. The agency is testing a remote screening option that sends images from a number of lanes to a stand-alone room for review to increase efficiency.

Write to Allison Pohle at [email protected]