On Wednesday, John Wayne Airport began...

On Wednesday, John Wayne Airport began using federal baggage

screeners to further protect passengers and departing flights. In

December, the airport, like others nationwide, will introduce an

explosives detection system that will further enhance security.

Skip Williams serves as the airport’s federal security director

and works for the nation’s Transportation Security Administration,

which falls under the U.S. Department of Transportation.

On Friday, City Editor James Meier met Williams at the airport to

discuss the new screeners, as well as future changes that will

benefit airline security.

So how are the new screeners doing so far?

The new screeners who started on Wednesday are doing very, very

well. They’re learning quickly. They’re impressing customers. I’ve

been here at the airport for several hours each day since they

started, for the most part, talking with customers who are coming

through the screening points and it’s just gratifying to have so many

people compliment them on the job that they’re doing. They say such

things as, “We think this is great. We feel they’re a very efficient

group of people, a very polite group of people.” And customer

service, of course, is a big part of their training.

Is there much of a difference in the feedback you’ve received

since before Wednesday?

Yes, there is. I won’t deny that there are a few, but very few

complaints because there’s always someone in a group who isn’t happy

about having to wait for anything. I wouldn’t suggest that complaints

are down, though I think they are -- we haven’t actually counted them

-- but I know the positive comments are way up. We didn’t normally

have people making positive comments, and it may be because it was

very routine to them and since this is new, people may want to say

something one way or another.

How many of these screeners were previously JWA screeners?

Actually, none of the screeners today are from the previous group,

although that will happen soon. The reason for that is the contract

screeners who were here through Tuesday. They stayed on the job until

the new screeners came on board. Then, they went for their

assessment. A goodly number of them have passed that assessment and

will be in training next week, so they’ll actually join us the week

after next.

Do passengers notice these changes?

Absolutely. In fact, it’s surprising to me that they notice, but

they do. As I stand down there, they probably deduce that I’m part of

the efforts, and a lot of them have approached me and said that they

notice how professional our group is looking, how polite they are,

how they treated them with a lot of respect, smiles. I have to tell

you that I stood there this morning, when the lines were 15 minutes

long for a while, yet people were coming through smiling, laughing,

actually enjoying having conversations with people who were wanding

them, screening them and so forth. It’s a real neat atmosphere.

Visually, are there any differences?

Yesterday, the wait times were higher than they normally would

have been at the same time any other day. Today, we improved a good

bit -- still a little bit longer than they would be normally -- and

that is because these people are still in fact trainees, and we need

to keep that in mind.

If you consider that a new federal screener receives 44 hours of

classroom training before they come on the job -- and that, by the

way, is compared with eight hours of classroom training that the

contractors received. Then, the new screeners come on the job and

receive on-the-job training for an additional 60 hours per

individual, meaning that they come on board and actually are working

at the screening points.

And they’re being supervised at this point by what we call a

mobile screening force [MSF], who are veteran screeners who travel

from airport to airport to help each airport get through this

training. They do the training. Every new screener has to spend 60

hours as an individual under the tutelage of an MSF before they can

be certified. Even at that point, they still have to test and pass

the test.

The contract screeners, by contrast, received 40 hours of

on-the-job training. So there is certainly a visual difference.

Things will improve each day and we know that within 10 days to two

weeks that lines will be shorter than they’ve ever been. Our goal is,

except for in extreme cases which might include a Monday morning at

John Wayne Airport, that people not wait longer than 10 minutes to

get through security.

Tell me a little about the $29-million explosives detection system

that JWA will receive in December.

Congress is requiring that every airport have in place by Dec. 31

a system that will screen every bag that goes on an airplane for

explosives. Airports are having to approach that in different manners

because of the construction of the airport in some cases because of a

whole number of things.

But, in fact, at John Wayne, because John Wayne Airport management

was so farsighted and forward looking -- very progressive management

folks here -- they were able to plan for this even before TSA arrived

on the scene.

So they’re in a position, and we’ll be, where we will in fact meet

the deadline of Dec. 31. But the good news is that we will do that

with what is called a complete inline system. What that means is,

instead of setting up explosive-trace detection machines here in the

lobbies, where we would have had to do that to temporarily check bags

before we got the system finished in the basement, we’ll have that

system done by Dec. 31. That is a major, major feat. The airport

deserves the credit for that because they’re the ones that thought

about it, designed it and, for that matter, at least up front,

financed it.

What that means is that all of the baggage that is checked on an

airplane will disappear just as it does today when someone checks in

at the counter -- it goes out on a belt. Instead of what happens

today, it will go through a very rigorous process on the way to the

airplane where machines will be in place to check for explosives.

Will that take any more time than it currently does?

It will take probably 60 to 120 seconds longer.

So it’s not as though passengers will have to arrive any earlier

than they do now?

No, they will not. Not for that purpose. That is absolutely true.

Once that’s in place, is there anything else that could ensure

we’re any safer?

Well, in terms on major projects like that, those really now are

our near-term goals. But, that said, TSA has a responsibility for

working with the airport management and the Police Department to put

these two projects we’re talking about now -- passenger screening and

baggage screening -- in place. From that point on -- in fact we’ve

already started -- we’ll be looking at other vulnerabilities and will

determine whether or not, in fact, there are things that as partners

we can fix or tweak to enhance security.

It will always be TSA’s goal to enhance security at every airport

no matter what we’ve done.

The next large project that will occur next year will be the

placing of some federal-uniformed police officers and federal

investigators at each airport. The number will be determined. In the

case of John Wayne, the number will probably be small because we have

such an efficient sheriff’s office here who do such a great job that

we may consider using federal-uniformed police in the area where the

gates are. We don’t know yet just how we’re going to that, because

many of the violations that take place are federal violations. We

certainly hope the sheriff’s department will stay, because they do

such a wonderful job. We’re work it out with the county and the

sheriff’s to talk about how we can meld together a team so that we

have people available to take care of all violations whether they be

local or federal.

Tell me a little about your history in the Secret Service.

I spent 20 years with the United States Secret Service, spent an

equal amount of years in protection and in the criminal

investigations side. I enjoyed myself very much. I had a lot of great

experiences and retired finally as the special agent in charge of the

Los Angeles field office in 1985.

How’d you get into this?

When I retired from the Secret Service, I went into private

industry and was the vice president and director of security for a

couple of companies here in the United States. But quite frankly,

after 9-11, while I was employed by a great company, I just felt like

there was something that I might be able to do with my experience in

the service and I really wanted to do that -- get back and help with

this effort. I think it’s a major challenge to this country and it’s

far from over, in terms of plugging vulnerabilities and doing the

things that we need to do to keep our travelers and other people

safe. So I applied and here I am.

Would you say passengers are more safe than they were a year ago

today?

Absolutely, without question. They’re safer than they were a few

weeks ago probably. We are seeing an increase in the number of

prohibitive items found at the screening points. Those include things

like pointed objects.

So passengers are still bringing those in?

Oh, it’s difficult to imagine how so many people could overlook

the things they have in their bags, but yes they are. Hundreds of

them a week.

What would you suggest for passengers at home before they pack

their bags?

What I suggest is that they think about the things that they’re

packing or that they may have in a bag that they carry with them

everyday and now are taking on a trip. Because often what happens is

passengers have a pair of scissors or screwdrivers that they carry

with them routinely and when they go on a trip, they forget, in many

cases, that that object is even in a bag and they bring it to the

airport and of course it’s either confiscated or they can take it to

the car or give it to someone who’s not going on the trip with them.

We usually end up with things like scissors or tweezers or pointed

objects. But, in essence, they have to think about what they’re

packing and if it can be used or construed as something that might be

used as a weapon, a pointed metal object, then they should leave it

at home.

Any final thoughts?

I would only say that I hope that, as time passes, folks will

recognize that screeners at the airports are absolute professional

folks who are very much wanting to serve them, as well as protect

them, while meeting the two goals we have at TSA, which are

world-class security and world-class customer service.