By Del Quentin Wilber
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 2, 2007

Airline passengers can't escape the headaches of the new age of air travel: long lines at checkpoints, confusion over security restrictions, lost luggage. But some airports are trying to ease the aggravation. A new travel program is under consideration at local airports to quicken the way to the gate. And security officials, aware of checkpoint inconveniences, are constantly mulling refinements in procedures. But what does the new year hold for your trip to the airport? In interviews with officials at the Transportation Security Administration and industry leaders, The Post assesses what possible changes lie ahead for the traveler.

Washington area airports are among more than a dozen expressing interest in the Registered Traveler program, an initiative that allows pre-screened passengers who pay an annual fee to breeze through security.

The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, which runs Reagan National and Dulles International airports, said it is considering seeking proposals from private vendors to run Registered Traveler at the two airports.

Officials at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport said they were also considering the program.

The moves come as the TSA recently announced that it would allow the program to expand beyond the one airport, in Orlando, where it now operates.

The program works by allowing participants, who have passed a background check, to move quickly through a special kiosk area and then through TSA checkpoints. It costs about $100 a year to join the program ($28 goes to the TSA). Participants' identities are verified through a biometrics card that contains digital scans of their fingerprints or retinas.

The main benefit: reliable and consistent wait times of about 1 minute to 5 minutes, said Steven Brill, chief executive of Verified Identity Pass, which runs the operation at Orlando's airport. More than 30,000 people have signed up to participate there, Brill said.

In coming weeks, Brill said his company plans to open Registered Traveler kiosks at four other airports, including John F. Kennedy International in New York. About 5,000 people have paid the annual fee to join the program at those airports, Brill said.

Toe-tapping and finger-drumming at the checkpoint will not cease any time soon. But TSA officials say the average wait to get through security during peak times has dropped in recent weeks because of a public-education campaign and better staffing.

In mid-August, the TSA banned most gels and liquids from carry-on bags after British police said they had uncovered a plot to blow up airliners with liquid bombs. In September, TSA officials eased those restrictions, allowing small amounts of gel and liquid toiletries onto planes if they could fit inside small plastic bags.

That move snarled security lines as passengers and screeners tried to figure out the new rules. Wait times at Dulles and Reagan National airports spiked. Worried that confusion about the rules was causing the increase, TSA launched a publicity campaign before the Thanksgiving travel crunch to alert people to the changes. The agency also beefed up staffing at checkpoints to handle the throng of travelers.

In the first few weeks of last month, the average peak wait time nationally has dropped to 11 minutes from 13 minutes in October, officials said.

Local airports also saw their wait times fall. The average peak wait time at Dulles last month dipped to 14 minutes from 24 minutes in October. During that same period, wait times at National dropped to 11 minutes from 15, and BWI's fell to 8 from 12.

The security measures also affected how airlines coped with baggage. After the initial ban in August, the number of checked bags rose by more than 20 percent. That has since settled down to 15 percent above pre-ban levels, TSA officials said.

Airlines are not losing as many bags as they did in August and September, according to the most recent data released by the federal government. But they are still mishandling far more bags than they did last year.

Airlines mishandled nearly 400,000 bags, or 7.5 per 1,000 fliers, in October, the last month for which statistics are available. That is up from the 4.96 per 1,000 they lost or misplaced in October 2005.

There is no end in sight to the ban on gels and liquids from passenger cabins, according to the TSA. Officials say they are excited about a hand-held device that can help them detect liquid explosives in a container-by-container analysis. The device would allow screeners to verify that bottles contain medicine or breast milk without opening them, speeding the checkpoint process without spoiling the liquids, officials said. The TSA's top official, Kip Hawley, said the device, built by ICx Nomadics, was recently tested at an airport in New Mexico and seems to be "very promising."

"We will be able to quickly ascertain if something contains explosives without opening it," Hawley said.

But despite testing at laboratories, the government has not found a device that can detect liquid explosives in carry-on bags. That means the TSA is unlikely to allow large containers of liquids and gels back into airplane cabins before the end of 2007, Hawley said.

A machine that scans shoes for explosives, allowing passengers to keep their footwear on, has been approved for use in Registered Traveler lanes.