United Airlines is joining Delta and America on the list of carriers teaming up with the Transportation Security Administration to revamp some hubs with automated security processes in order to alleviate congestion at security checkpoints.
United announced the initiative on Wednesday, noting that the first automated lanes will appear at Newark Liberty International Airport this fall, with lanes opening in Chicago’s O’Hare and Los Angeles airports before the end of the year in a bid to reduce screening times by up to 30%.
The modified screening lanes – which have already been in use at the Atlanta airport as part of a TSA initiative with Delta Air Lines and in Dallas, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Miami as part of a recently announced partnership with American – automate many of the duties done physically by security workers.
The new lanes enable up to five customers to fill their individual bins simultaneously and move through the screening process quickly. The lanes also utilize a parallel conveyor system that automatically returns empty bins to the front of the queue.
Additionally, the lanes will move suspicious bags to a separate area for additional screening to allow bins behind it to continue through the system uninterrupted.
At Newark, United says it will consolidate four checkpoints into one new, centralized location, and install audio and visual enhancements to the area.
Similar plans are in the works for O’Hare and Los Angeles International Airport.
United said on Wednesday that through the partnership, the carrier and TSA will open permanent TSA Precheck enrollment centers at the airline’s hub airports in Chicago, Newark, Houston, Los Angeles and San Francisco, in addition to temporary off-site enrollment centers at New York’s Penn Station and Chicago’s Willis Tower.
by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist
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