http://www.newsobserver.com/news/sto...-9090741c.html
from Wednesday, August 3 Raleigh newspaper:

Inquiry focuses on RDU security
Wait times were doctored, flier says
Levitan says screeners changed his wait time twice.
By MICHAEL EASTERBROOK, Staff Writer
The federal administration responsible for screening passengers and bags at U.S. airports is investigating a Triangle man's claim that a screener at Raleigh-Durham International Airport lied about the time it took him to get through a security checkpoint.
The Transportation Security Administration opened the inquiry July 27 after seeing a letter to the editor in The News & Observer, said Christopher White, an administration spokesman. In the letter, Ben Levitan of Raleigh described how screeners allegedly fudged the time it took him to clear security.

Levitan, 47, claims that on two occasions late last year, screeners at RDU asked him to participate in a test used to measure how long it takes passengers to move through security checkpoints.

As he entered the line, they handed him a piece of paper stamped with the time and asked him to turn it in once he cleared the checkpoint. Instead, though, they grabbed the paper from him midway through the line and recorded the time as if he had already passed through, he said.

Levitan said he didn't think much of it the first time it happened on a Saturday morning in October. But when it happened again the following month, he complained to the screener.

"I said, 'What are you doing? I'm not out of the line yet,'" recalled Levitan, who works as an electrical engineer for a cell phone operator and flies about twice a month. "She said, 'Sir, you need to cooperate.'"

White declined to comment on the status of the investigation and said he didn't known when it would be completed.

"We take these allegations seriously," he said. "We have a unique public trust."

At airports throughout the country, screeners frequently ask passengers to carry time-stamped cards through checkpoints as a way of measuring wait times, White said.

He said the average wait at RDU was 3.9 minutes, while the average during peak hours was 11.2 minutes. Peak hours are when passenger flow is heaviest, usually Monday mornings and Friday afternoons.

When USA Today crunched numbers from the administration, it found that the average wait time at RDU was 5.4 minutes, according to a report that appears on the newspaper's Web site.

White said he's confident the administration's numbers are correct and added that most airports would be happy with RDU's wait times.

"I would say that a 3.9-minute wait time would be considered to be good at any airport in the country," White said.

Several passengers waiting for flights Tuesday said RDU checkpoints flowed smoothly compared to those at other airports. Only one traveler complained about the checkpoints.

"They appear to me to be very slow," said Barbara Irwin, 59, of Wilson, who was flying to Indianapolis to visit her daughter.

The Transportation Security Administration, part of the Department of Homeland Security, staffs checkpoints at more than 400 airports nationwide with 45,000 screeners. It currently employs 286 screeners at RDU and plans to reduce that number by five through attrition, White said.

The cuts are part of a nationwide reshuffling of screeners announced last week. While some airports will lose screeners, others will gain.

Mindy Hamlin, a spokeswoman for RDU, said the reduction probably would not affect wait times at the airport. But she warned that further cuts might.

"You do reach a point if you continue to reduce staff where you can't keep the wait times down," Hamlin said.

Staff writer Michael Easterbrook can be reached at 836-5701 or [email protected].