Air Security Concerns Prompt Longer Wait Times, Carry-On Restrictions

Major airlines and transportation security agencies throughout the world are warning travelers bound for the United States of longer passages through security checkpoints and revised carry-on policies, as the upper reaches of the U.S. government continue to assess the long-term airport security implications of the failed Christmas attack on a Northwest Airlines flight.

In what it called "temporary emergency measures at security checkpoints," the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority yesterday said it would not permit any passenger to bring carry-on bags on flights from Canada to the United States, though it is making exceptions for certain "personal items," including laptop computers and small purses. "These rules will be strictly enforced during this period. There will be no flexibility," according to CATSA, which said that passengers traveling within Canada still would be allowed two carry-ons.

Effective through Friday, passengers headed to the United States from Belgium are limited to one carry-on bag. United Airlines is telling customers that flights from Amsterdam Airport Schiphol—the point of departure for the alleged would-be Dec. 25 bomber bound for Detroit—are limiting passengers to one carry-on bag, while British Airways similarly noted one carry-on bag limits for passengers flying from London Heathrow, Gatwick or London City to the United States.

Airlines and security agencies also are telling passengers to expect longer wait times to pass through security. Among other carriers, American Airlines is asking passengers "to arrive at the airport at least three hours in advance of their flight departure," especially for flights from Canada, while KLM is telling passengers to expect a similar timeframe for U.S.-bound flights from the Netherlands.

Effective yesterday, the U.S. Transportation Security Administration required airport security personnel here and abroad to heighten screening methods for passengers traveling through or from Afghanistan, Algeria, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.

"TSA is mandating that every individual flying into the U.S. from anywhere in the world traveling from or through nations that are state sponsors of terrorism or other countries of interest will be required to go through enhanced screening," TSA said, saying that it also would increase the use of "enhanced screening technologies and mandates threat-based and random screening for passengers on U.S.-bound international flights."

According a transcript of an informal press briefing aboard Air Force One yesterday, White House deputy press secretary Bill Burton told reporters that President Barack Obama today would hold a review of security measures with the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies.

In addition to heightened security procedures TSA is mandating for travelers from select countries, Burton said the government already has undergone "a rescrubbing of all the different lists" used by law enforcement and TSA, including the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment list, the selectee list and the no-fly list.

"Safety and security measures are moving forward even as the review goes on," Burton said. "I would say that if you look at the process that we undertook, people moving from the TIDE list to the selectee list or the no-fly list, probably thousands upon thousands upon thousands of names were scrubbed, and probably dozens were moved to different lists."