US: Air travellers using US airports can expect to face yet more delays from tomorrow when new security rules for baggage screening come into play. The rules, rushed into law by Congress in the autumn, will require airlines to match all luggage to individual flying passengers.
The practice is already standard in Europe and a spokesman for Aer Lingus said yesterday it would not result in any change in the way luggage is handled at Irish airports.
US airports handle four million individual items of luggage a day.
The new law allows the airlines to use a combination of four screening methods: sending checked bags through explosives-detection devices; hand-checking bags; using bomb-sniffing dogs to ferret out explosives hidden in luggage; or matching checked baggage with passengers.
But there are only 160 explosive-detection machines at the 50 busiest airports in the US, according to the Federal Aviation Administration, and the machines have a capacity of about 360 bags an hour.
In addition, there are only 190 bomb-sniffing dogs at airports. Hand-checking bags is extremely time-consuming and prone to human error.
The result is reliance initially, on bag-matching, although critics warn that the approach does nothing to prevent suicide attacks.
Mr Paul Hudson of the Aviation Consumer Action Project warns: "You can match the bags, but it doesn't prevent a bomb from being put on as long as the passenger gets on." Mr Hudson's daughter was killed in the Lockerbie bombing.
Critics also warn that the plans only require bag-matching on a first flight and not on a connecting flight, precisely the weakness that allowed the Lockerbie bomb to travel unattended.
The airports will be required to introduce sufficient detection machines by December 31st to screen all baggage at a cost of $1 million each, and will start charging passengers $2.50 a head "security tax" for each leg of a trip from February 1st.