Revealing body scanners used in N.Y., L.A.

Airports in New York and Los Angeles have become the latest equipped with body scanners that allow security screeners to peer beneath a passenger's clothing to detect concealed weapons.

The machines, which are about the size of a revolving door, use low-energy electromagnetic waves to produce a computerized image of a traveler's entire body.

Passengers step in and lift their arms. The scans only take a minute, and Transportation Security Administration officials say the procedure is less invasive than a physical frisk for knives, bombs or guns.

Someday, the "millimeter wave" scans might replace metal detectors, but for now they are being used selectively.

Los Angeles International Airport and John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York saw their first scanners installed Thursday, each at a single checkpoint. Phoenix Sky-Harbor International Airport got one of the machines in October.

Modest travelers may have concerns about the images.

The black and white, three-dimensional scans aren't as vivid as a photograph, but they do reveal some of the more intimate curves of the human form, maybe with as much clarity as an impressionist sculpture by Auguste Rodin.

TSA officials say the system comes with privacy protections. Officers reviewing the images don't interact with passengers, or even see them. They sit in a separate area, look at the pictures on a monitor and push a button to either clear travelers or alert security about a suspicious item.

Images will not be recorded or stored. Passenger faces are blurred to further protect their identities.

For now, the scans will also be voluntary. Flyers selected for a secondary screening after passing through the metal detectors will have the option of stepping into the wave scanner, rather than undergoing a physical pat-down.

"We're giving people a choice," said TSA spokeswoman Lara Uselding.

Barry Steinhardt, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's program on technology and liberty, said he nevertheless had concerns.

"The images that I've seen are quite revealing," he said. "I guarantee you that as this gets more commonly used, you'll be seeing these images on the Internet."

The TSA said millimeter wave scanners, which cost as much as $120,000 apiece, are already in limited use at international airports in seven countries and at a handful of courthouses and jails in five states.

Their introduction to U.S. airports is on a trial basis while authorities evaluate their effectiveness. The TSA said the devices pose no health risk and project 10,000 times less energy than a cell phone transmission.

Praying passenger removed from flight

A passenger who left his seat to pray in the back of a plane before it took off, ignoring flight attendants' orders to return, was removed by an airport security guard, a witness and the airline said.

The Orthodox Jewish man, who wore a full beard, a black hat and a long black coat, stood near the lavatories and began saying his prayers while the United Airlines jet was being boarded at John F. Kennedy International Airport on Wednesday night, fellow passenger Ori Brafman said.

When flight attendants urged the man, who was carrying a religious book, to take his seat, he ignored them, Brafman said. Two friends, who were seated, tried to tell the attendants that the man couldn't stop until his prayers were over in about 2 minutes, he said.

"He doesn't respond to them, but his friends explain that once you start praying you can't stop," said Brafman, who was seated three rows away.

When the man finally stopped praying, he explained that he couldn't interrupt his religious ritual and wasn't trying to be rude. But the attendants summoned a guard to remove him, said Brafman, a writer who had been visiting New York to talk to publishers.

The plane, Flight 9 to San Francisco, took off without the man. It landed at its destination as scheduled, Brafman said by telephone from his home there.

Robin Urbanski, a spokeswoman for United Airlines, a subsidiary of UAL Corp. with headquarters in Chicago, confirmed the man was taken off the plane and put on another flight Thursday morning.

Urbanksi said flights cannot depart if all passengers are not in their seats, which risks a delay, and it is important that passengers listen to the instructions of the flight crew.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs area airports, and the Transportation Safety Administration, which handles airport security, said Thursday they weren't involved in the incident.

FAA sets up alerts for missed inspections

The Federal Aviation Administration is going to begin alerting its top headquarters officials when field inspectors miss airline safety inspections, Transportation Secretary Mary Peters announced Friday.

Peters also demanded that the FAA and American Airlines explain to her within 14 days why 250,000 U.S. air travelers endured canceled flights last week. American grounded its MD-80 jetliners and canceled 3,100 flights in order to inspect or redo wiring that was supposed to have been completed between Sept. 5, 2006, and March 5, 2008.

“No one at all was well served by what happened last week,” Peters told a news conference outside FAA headquarters.
She said she didn’t think federal regulators had overreacted in the wake of revelations about the FAA’s lax supervision of Southwest Airlines. Last month, it was revealed that the FAA allowed Southwest to fly dozens of Boeing 737s without inspecting them as required for fuselage cracks and that Southwest’s system for complying with FAA safety directives had not been inspected by the FAA since 1999.

But Peters wanted to know “why so many aircraft had to be grounded and so many travelers had to be inconvenienced” in order to “help us avoid similar disruptions” as the FAA completes an audit of all major airlines’ compliance with safety directives. The audit was ordered after the Southwest debacle came to light and helped uncover the MD-80 wiring problems.

• Flanked by acting FAA administrator Bobby Sturgell, Peters announced a series of steps to improve safety in a system she insisted was already the safest in history:
• FAA is setting up a national safety inspection review team to examine airlines for problems mostly likely to occur and in a comprehensive way.
• FAA will begin requiring senior field office officials to sign off on voluntary safety disclosures by airlines. These voluntary disclosures must show the immediate problem has been fixed and steps have been taken to ensure it won’t recur. In return, the airlines will avoid penalties for the safety problems.
• The FAA general counsel and Transportation officials will begin meeting with airlines to be sure they have plans for accommodating passengers if there are future mass aircraft groundings.
• Peters named five outside aviation and safety experts to recommend improvements for the whole system within 120 days.

“This plan appears to address some of the main problems that created the current safety crisis,” said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. “But the question remains: Will the FAA devote the resources and manpower to get it done right?”

Many of the steps had been recommended by Transportation Department Inspector General Calvin L. Scovel III, particularly the new system to alert top headquarters officials when safety inspections fall behind schedule. Scovel concluded in a highly critical report that the FAA had “developed an overly collaborative relationship” with Southwest.

The lack of headquarters supervision of inspections was evident when Sturgell was unable to give a number when asked how many inspections were currently overdue, but he said the new alert system would remedy that.Sturgell also denied that the audit of all carriers represented a new, tougher approach by his agency. “This is not a crackdown; it’s not getting tough,” Sturgell said, but rather an attempt to verify the system is working effectively. He reinforced that by noting that during the audit the FAA had given nine different airlines approval for 14 different alternate methods of complying with FAA safety orders, including on the wiring problem.

Peters did not address Scovel’s recommendations that FAA come to better grips with massive retirements and resignations among its air traffic controllers and safety inspectors. Scovel noted that controllers-in-training now comprise 25 percent of the controller work force, compared with 15 percent in 2004, and that half of its safety inspectors are eligible to retire in the next five years.

“The real problem is there aren’t enough FAA inspectors to keep tabs on the burgeoning number of outsourced maintenance facilities,” said Teamster Union President Jim Hoffa, “especially overseas where foreign repair stations don’t have to meet the same standards as U.S. facilities do.” He called Peters’ plan “window dressing.”

The FAA had already announced it would adopt one Scovel recommendation: lengthening the “cooling off period” before former FAA inspectors can work for an airline they used to oversee or interact with the agency.

Peters emphasized that since the late 1990s the death rate in commercial aviation has dropped from 45 for every 100 million people flown to a record low five-to-eight deaths per 100 million flown. But she said, “A good system can always be made better,” and asked her panel of outside experts to help do that.

The panel includes J. Randolph Babbitt, former president of the Air Line Pilots Association; William O. McCabe, former Director of Aviation DuPont and member of the National Business Aviation Association safety committee; Malcolm K. Sparrow, a professor of public management at Harvard; Edward W. Stimpson, U.S. representative under President Clinton on the Council of the International Civil Aviation Organization; and Carl W. Vogt, former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board.

“We fully support the formation of the commission,” said John Meenan, executive vice president of the Air Transport Association, which represents the major airlines.

Delta Airlines StandBy Service

(This is my personal account on what occured.)
My Friday and Saturday was spent impatiently starring at the standby list, hoping my name will appear on the cleared list..What I did not know was that I was going to be waiting a very long time.
I analyzed how the ticket agents placed other Delta employees and agents directly to the cleared list and moved paying customers with confirmed seats and others with buddy passes to the end of the standby list. After a full day of this unprofessionalism, I asked an agent why a Delta employee who was not on the standby list or the cleared list was allowed to board before the customers who have been waiting for several hours- her response was that she was a Delta employee and she had and will always have priority over other customers.
Interesting fact to know!
So the fact of me trying to fly out to Orlando to be with my family, and waiting 24 hours, watching other Delta employees board the same flight while the agent is announcing that the flight was overbooked- that has no priority.
I watched a family of three stranded and forced to wait until the following morning for the next available flight, due to this selfish way that Delta conducts its boarding process.
This manor of favoritism was not the act of just one ticket agent, but all!
Need I remind you I was at the airport from 8:00 AM Friday until 9:30 PM Saturday-
a total of 36 hours. I still did not clear. I am still waiting to go home...
I have always used Delta to travel, and never had any complaints..
But this ordeal which I have experienced is incredible. I give Delta Airlines a big thumbs down on there customer service and standby procedures.

Why U.S. Airlines Still Won't Join the Mobile Mile-High Club

Airline passengers abroad could soon find themselves sitting in chatter class. In the past two weeks, regulatory authorities and individual airlines in Europe have taken steps to allow in-flight cellphone use—not that you’ll be able to phone home while flying over the United States anytime soon.

The British equivalent of the Federal Communications Commission approved on Monday all non-3G mobile calls aboard aircraft registered in the United Kingdom, although the country’s civil aviation authority would likely need to approve each airline’s plans for how it would work. (Among other things, flight crews would need to be trained in such niceties as how to cut off gabby chit-chatters.) Elsewhere in Europe, Air France is testing cellphones aboard several Airbus A318s, while Virgin Atlantic, British Midland and Ryanair have all expressed early interest in their own programs. And Emirates Airlines, which already touts such over-the-top amenities as in-flight showers aboard its forthcoming A380 flights, launched cellphone use last month, expecting to add its AeroMobile service to the entire fleet within a few years.

Across the pond, however, in-flight cellphone use is still illegal over the States, and likely will remain that way. That may seem strange in the birthplace of the iPhone, but it’s precisely because mobile devices are ubiquitous on the ground, surveys show, that consumer sentiment remains overwhelmingly in favor of keeping the skies as the last bastion of freedom from phone chatter.

At least that’s what the Federal Communications Commission found when it attempted to overturn the ban. The agency had long opposed cellphones on planes because of potential interference with ground-based networks, until new tech solved the problem. The key is pico-cell technology—cellphone calls are routed through a small receiver on the plane, which relays transmissions to the ground via a separate air-to-ground network. That lowers the power of the cellphone signal and reduces the chances of interference with other cellphone calls on the ground.

But if airborne mobile proponents thought they could fight the law on networks alone, they were mistaken: The FCC received around 8000 comments, a large number of them from individuals opposed to the prospect of cellphone cacophony at 30,000 ft. The Flight Attendants Association also filed strong objections, saying it feared a sharp rise in rage incidents. And there was even a security warning from the Department of Homeland Security, which said terrorists could use mobile devices to detonate onboard explosives more easily—and coordinate attacks. It’s unclear how much that influenced the FCC to hold off, but the agency did, in fact, officially end any consideration of in-flight cellphone calls last year. Last week, an FCC spokeswoman confirmed to PopularMechanics.com that the agency presently has no interest in revisiting the question, even if experiments abroad demonstrate that most opponents’ fears are unfounded.

Another holdup has been aviation safety. The Federal Aviation Administration has barred the use of mobile phones on U.S. flights for years because of potential interference with a plane’s navigational signals. Those concerns might diminish once the foreign airlines’ test results come in. However, one study at Carnegie Mellon University found that passengers were surreptitiously making cellphone calls despite the ban, and suggested that there were around 25 incidents of interference with aircraft communications each year (although the evidence that this was caused by cellphones is circumstantial). Other experts note that no accidents have been directly tied to use of cellphones. FAA spokesman Les Dorr told PM that as long as the FCC is opposed, “it’s a moot point anyway.”

Airlines in the U.S. could, of course, push for cellphones if they thought their customers really wanted it. Instead, they’re competing to be the first to offer wireless Internet access. A few months ago JetBlue started its limited in-flight broadband Wi-Fi service on a few aircraft, in partnership with Yahoo and Research in Motion; Blackberry users can send and receive e-mail from any account, while laptop users are limited to Yahoo for their e-mailing and instant messaging. American Airlines and Virgin America are also working with U.S. provider AirCell to roll out Web browsing and e-mail capabilities, and just won FAA approval to start installing the hardware aboard American’s 767-200 fleet. Southwest and Alaska Airlines are also planning Wi-Fi experiments of their own.

But if foreign airlines can make a strong case, it might just be a matter of time before cellphones literally reach new heights. Some airlines are already laying out ground rules for civilized usage, beyond cinema-style reminders to switch to silent or vibrate mode. Emirates, for example, limits calls to five or six at a time and gives flight crews the power to turn off voice communications altogether—sleeping on planes is hard enough already. But the airline, like several others racing for a mobile rollout, already had seat-back phones handling more than 7000 calls a month before mobile devices were allowed, so it had reason to expect a smooth transition. On the other hand, many U.S. airlines removed in-seat phones because their high cost made them impractical. Verizon’s Airfones cost callers about $5 to connect and $7 to $10 per minute on long-distance flights. Indeed, onboard calls won’t ever be free—it likely will cost significantly more than it does on the ground—and, ultimately, that may be the most effective brake on excessive use.

Airline Havoc

The Federal Aviation Administration is hoping the safety-related groundings of commercial airplanes that caused havoc for 300,000 passengers around the country last week won't continue into the heavy summer travel season. But the man charged with protecting federal whistle-blowers tells TIME he's got additional cases coming down the runway that could do just that. And the FAA warns that sloppy maintenance work — like that which resulted in the grounding of more than 3,000 American Airlines flights last week — could occur through the end of June as the FAA wraps up a two-phase inspection process.

By ordering American to ground all its planes at once, the FAA was making a statement. But the disruption it caused may result in a more measured approach.

Scott Bloch, the head of the U.S. Office of Special Counsel — charged with protecting federal whistleblowers — says he is investigating several new cases involving possibly flawed compliance with airworthiness directives that could lead to more groundings. "There are additional revelations about oversight issues with regard to airline safety that are coming forward," Bloch told TIME on Tuesday. He says his office is probing four or five cases involving two, and possibly three, airlines, but declined to offer any additional details. "Until these new cases develop, I can't speak to whether there would be likely groundings," he says. "I can only say that it is possible."

The FAA has been ratcheting up pressure on airlines since March, when it launched "phase one" of a probe that required its inspectors to make sure each carrier was complying with 10 randomly chosen "airworthiness directives," the agency's written safety bulletins. (About 200 are issued annually.) The FAA followed that with what it calls "phase two," where its inspectors are reviewing 10% of all airworthiness directives per fleet to determine compliance. Initial results show the airlines have been complying with about 99% of the directives. But that remaining 1% was enough to cause hundreds of flight cancellations.

While the FAA is relatively optimistic about the summer travel season, there may be more groundings to come in the next couple of months. "I don't have a crystal ball, but we would make the assumption that the airlines have been looking very closely at their AD compliance" following the crackdown, says FAA spokeswoman Allison Duqette. "But there's no way for me to really predict what is going to happen." The two-phase review didn't start with the most challenging ADs, which means that the chance of more trouble for the airlines remains the same until the audit process concludes June 30. Aviation experts say the older an airline's fleet, like those used by the big legacy carriers such as American, Northwest and United, the more likely its planes are to be grounded.

Both Scott Bloch and Rep. James Oberstar, the Minnesota Democrat who chairs the House Transportation Committee, are highly critical of the way the FAA has been overseeing the nation's airlines. Asked Monday night if the nation's air travelers have endured the worst in the latest round of groundings, Oberstar snapped: "We'll be through the worst of it when they take their customer service initiative directive and tear it up, shred it, and establish a new mindset that is aviation safety-compliant. What they're doing now is going through the mechanics of what they should have been doing for months."

He also believes the FAA isn't ensuring sufficient maintenance is being done during the current tough economic times. "In the '70s, '80s and early '90s when aviation went through severe economic downturns — that either were, or just short of, recession — the FAA stood vigilant to make sure that the airlines were investing as much in maintenance in the hard times as they did in the good times," Oberstar says. "I don't think there is that attitude of vigilance now within the FAA."

Duquette takes issue with those allegations. She points out that airline travel has become much safer as the FAA and airlines have worked more as partners since the deadly Valujet crash in 1996. "We've had a very concerted effort for probably the past 7 to 10 years using data to identify risk in the system well before accidents happen," Duquette says. "That's what has helped reduce our accident rate over the years — getting information from the industry, from the airlines about where potential problems may crop up."

The trouble with American's MD-80s cropped up during a phase one inspection, Duquette says, and, when rechecked during phase two, was found to persist on 15 airplanes. Fasteners designed to secure wires to keep them from chafing were installed too far apart, and in some cases backwards. That's when the FAA — sensitive about complaints from its own workers that it had been too cozy with Southwest Airlines, which had been allowed to keep its planes flying without required inspections to detect fuselage cracks — insisted American ground its MD-80 fleet until the required work was repaired.

But why ground the entire fleet, instead of letting the airline do it over several weeks, as it requested and as many carriers had been allowed to do with previous enforcement actions? "We would not have approved that," Duquette says. "Given what we found at Southwest Airlines, we feel we needed to step up our focus on AD compliance for a couple months. But that should be ending in June and hopefully there will be no disruption to summer travel plans."

3-1-1 Carry On Procedures

Make Your Trip Better Using 3-1-1

3-1-1 for carry-ons = 3 ounce bottle or less (by volume) ; 1 quart-sized, clear, plastic, zip-top bag; 1 bag per passenger placed in screening bin. One-quart bag per person limits the total liquid volume each traveler can bring. 3 oz. container size is a security measure.

Consolidate bottles into one bag and X-ray separately to speed screening.

Be prepared. Each time TSA searches a carry-on it slows down the line. Practicing 3-1-1 will ensure a faster and easier checkpoint experience.

3-1-1 is for short trips. If in doubt, put your liquids in checked luggage.

Declare larger liquids. Medications, baby formula and food, breast milk, and juice are allowed in reasonable quantities exceeding three ounces and are not required to be in the zip-top bag. Declare these items for inspection at the checkpoint.

Come early and be patient. Heavy travel volumes and the enhanced security process may mean longer lines at security checkpoints.