The British Department for Transport, Reuters says, still hopes to announce changes to their stricter rules on carry-on luggage this week. However, other sources indicate that this is not likely as they are likely to do anything until later in the month. On September 27th, aviation experts are set to review European Union proposals for carry-on baggage.
The U.S., conversely, said last week that there is no timeline for changes in the current U.S. security protocols. Airlines have urged governments to coordinate, and that the differences in what passengers can take on planes in different countries is causing confusion, and further divisions would only confuse passengers further.
Meanwhile, for people checking luggage in the US, USAToday reports today that a crisis is seen in the screening of checked baggage. Many of the current detection machines were installed in a hurry after 9/11, and were at a large percentage of airports, installed on the passenger level instead of as part of the conveyor systems. Thus, luggage must be tagged by the airline, moved to screening by the TSA, then put on conveyor belts. This, and the slowness of the screening process are slowly down bag processing time and contributing to baggage loss and delay.
Reports indicate that there is more demand and already issues in the processing capacity. Higher-speed scanners are expected in a year or two which are ten times faster and reduce the number of false alarms. Legislation is pending to move the installation of these machines from 2024 to the much more rapid 2013.
We wonder if the airlines are willing to contribute to this process, should they be able to afford it, as they would benefit from the increased baggage processing time in serving passengers. Already, passenger facility charges are levied by airports to support capital projects. Unfortunately, Americans seem to be very concerned with taxes, of which this would be one, and the political fallout from raising them can be large. On the other hand, how many people know what the passenger facility charge was on their last ticket?
