[QUOTE=Bart]The intent all along was to have in-line baggage systems that minimized the number of bags and number of times that they would have to be handled by either TSA officers or airline employees. Unfortunately, this means having to reconfigure the conveyor systems to accomodate the CTX and ETD machines. Some folks just can't adjust to changes in the matrix.
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Just allow paging once all major airports get this system and I'm all for it. I think the feds are slowly giving funds to TSA and airports to build these systems. My father works for a conveyor company that builds these systems for the airports. Small airports like DSM and SYR could be put at the bottom of the list and stand-alone CTX machines from major airports with inline systems can be sent there.
Also, some TSA employees read too much into this and think that using airline-contracted employees to load and unload baggage systems is part of some grand government conspiracy to downsize TSA. Actually, it's a smart move by TSA. This enables TSA to focus its screening workforce to essential tasks such as checkpoint screening and, according to press releases, ticket reading at checkpoint entrances. And it helps significantly reduce the number of job-related injuries.
No offense, but I want TSA down-sized. They should be used for essential tasks like reading x-ray screens and ETD testing. (I'll avoid the privatization controversy here.) Using TSA for loading and unloading baggage is like using a police officer as a toll-booth collector. I still think TSA staffing is not properly planned at airports. Sometimes there are 3 screeners at a CTX machine with low pax volume and sometimes there's 1 screener at a CTX machine with 10-20 bags!!!
(He ended up doing a mass ETD swab on all of them and then threw them on the baggage conveyor.)