EDITORIAL
Sitting Ducks at LAX
March 28, 2005
Since the Sept. 11 attacks, airline travelers have become more or less resigned to standing in lines. If waiting for checked luggage to undergo new scrutiny and for passengers and carry-on bags to get more than a cursory scan keeps bombs and hijackers off planes, who can really complain?
OK, plenty of people. And perhaps unbeknown to them, it turns out that inconvenience is not the only problem. As air travel rebounds toward pre-9/11 levels, the growing queues make tempting ground-level targets.
A Rand Corp. study on security at Los Angeles International Airport lacks only the phrase "sitting ducks..." The Rand report claims the problem at LAX can be fixed quickly and relatively cheaply by hiring more skycaps, ticketing agents and security screeners. Mayor James K. Hahn, who is pushing an $11-billion airport renovation, says he agrees with Rand on the urgency of shortening lines but defends the airport director's position that doing so would be neither quick nor easy. The LAX argument is this: Debt-ridden airlines are too broke to hire additional ticket-counter staff, and the number of airport screeners is capped by the federal government. Further, the cramped airport doesn't have room for new counters or scanning stations.
City Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa, Hahn's challenger in the May 17 runoff, accuses the mayor of "summarily dismissing" Rand's recommendation as a way to bolster his more costly renovation. But Villaraigosa is vague about how he would find the money or the room to shorten lines. He opposes even a scaled-back compromise on LAX renovation that was adopted by the rest of the City Council, instead calling for the same regional airport system everyone supports and no one has figured out how to create. That isn't exactly a quick fix either.
More..
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-ed-lax28mar28,1,3105762.story
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