VIA: Cincinnati.com
HEBRON – Passengers traveling out of Terminal 3 at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport soon won’t have to walk nearly as far to go through security. In fact, beginning Wednesday, the checkpoint will be on the same floor as ticketing – thanks to a major overhaul of the airport’s security screening facilities.
“It used to be that it would be hard to get people into the shortest lanes because you couldn’t see what’s going on downstairs,” said Paul Wisniewski, the local federal security director for the Transportation Security Administration. “This should run a lot smoother than in the past, and even then we didn’t have very long wait times even during peak times.”
But airport officials warn that travelers could see delays over the first few days at the new $23 million checkpoint building, as equipment is moved and screening lanes are shut down temporarily. Only six of the 10 new lanes will be open Wednesday, with the rest scheduled to open Thursday.
“We just ask that you bear with us, as with any construction project,” airport spokeswoman Barb Schempf said, pointing out the new checkpoint will have 10 screening lanes (as opposed to the current nine) and eventually have all new X-ray machines. “In the end, it will improve the overall process.”
Construction on the new checkpoint began in 2007 after being approved by the Kenton County Airport Board the previous year. Schempf said the facilities were needed despite the dramatic drop in flights and passengers in the last three years, because the screening area served the local market and not passengers transferring through Delta Air Lines’ hub here. The airport paid for almost all of the new building and checkpoint, with the TSA contributing $700,000 for a new security camera system.
“This looks to the needs of our local passengers, and those numbers are up this year,” she said. “Besides, our long term plan calls for all the airlines to be housed out of Terminal 3 at some point, and this would allow us to do that in the long term.”
Indeed, Wisniewski said that the local security operation is handling between 8,000-9,000 passengers daily. And since Delta lowered its fares at CVG last February, local traffic has increased, although it is up only 2 percent through September as compared with last year.
In addition, the TSA is switching over to a new $16 million automated system to screen checked luggage. Before, TSA workers fed bags into screening machines by hand, but the agency started using the new conveyor belts over the past month, with completion due by the end of the month. The TSA paid for $11 million of the work, while the airport added $5 million.
Wisniewski said that before the new system was in place, workers would have to pick up “120-130 percent of the bags (by hand), meaning we would handle some twice.”
“Now, we’re handling less than 10 percent, and when we’re done, we expect to handle 2-3 percent,” he said.
