Trying to Reduce Wait at Airports : Screening: Passengers returning to the United States often face delays of two hours before clearing immigration and customs. A new bill calls for quickening the process.

How long should it take returning airline passengers to clear U.S. Customs and also go through agriculture and U.S. Immigration inspections at the airport? Should Immigration be allowed to screen U.S. citizens selectively instead of handling each passenger individually?

In response to these and other related questions, four Washington, D.C.-based travel industry associations have asked Congress to update the method by which incoming travelers--both citizens and non-citizens--are inspected so as to provide a quicker entry into the United States.

The legislative package developed by the four groups--which consist of the Air Transport Assn., American Assn. of Airport Executives, Airports Assn. Council International/North America, and the Travel and Tourism Government Affairs Council--was given to Congress early last month. Subsequently, the Expedited Airport Processing Act of 1992, based on the group proposals, was introduced in the House by Rep. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.)

“The predicament we face is caused by an old system that assumes all air travelers are potential law breakers, and subjects them to unnecessary and burdensome procedures that are rarely encountered elsewhere in the world,” said the report in part.

By law, immigration inspections are supposed to take no longer than 45 minutes per plane, which is the international standard covering all processing of passengers, including customs clearance.

In fact, it is not uncommon to wait two hours or more during peak periods at major U.S. airports, said Richard Norton, facilitation director of the Air Transport Assn.

“We’re supposed to clear the plane load, regardless of its configuration, within 45 minutes,” Austin said. “Congress has indicated we should meet this standard, which we generally do, but this doesn’t mean that if it takes longer than 45 minutes, passengers can bypass being inspected.”

The associations would like to see this 45-minute limit set for inspections by all federal agencies at airports, including customs, agriculture and immigration.

Another key proposal in the package of suggested legislative measures is the one to permit immigration to screen passengers and their passports on a selective basis instead of each traveler receiving face-to-face treatment.

“Customs already screens travelers selectively, and we would like to see the law revised, enabling immigration to use new tools and methods in reducing delays at airports,” said Norton.

“While immigration and customs have different needs, customs has already learned that you can lose sight of the forest by looking at all the trees.”

The legislation also proposed expansion of the system whereby immigration screens passengers on the basis of information provided electronically while flights are still in progress. Airlines, using machine-reading passports, can transmit data electronically to immigration officials, thus enabling a great deal of pre-screening to be handled before the plane lands in the United States.

However, immigration officials contend that, technically, they have no choice in the matter of checking passengers. “Travelers should realize that immigration, by law, has to check each person, whereas customs is not required to check each piece of luggage,” said Duke Austin, an Immigration spokesman. “We don’t have that option, which is a critical difference. Moreover, if you don’t check documents, how do you know who is a citizen and who isn’t? Selectivity in this context doesn’t work.”

Immigration already uses the Advance Passenger Information System (APIS), which expedites traveler entry to the United States through pre-flight or en-route submission of passenger information from participating airlines to a computer database.

U.S. airlines that currently use APIS are American, Continental, Delta, Northwest, TWA and United. Foreign carriers include Air New Zealand, All Nippon Airways, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas.

Immigration also uses what it calls the Accelerated Citizen Examination (ACE) program, whereby it speeds entry of citizens at peak periods by selectively waiving database queries. Though citizens are still required to show their passports to immigration officers, they may not be asked any time-consuming follow-up questions.

The travel groups also contend that the volume of passengers requiring processing has outgrown the manpower available at the airport.

“The number of immigration service personnel at airports has not increased to anywhere near the level needed to handle the huge growth in international travel in the past five or six years,” Norton said.

U.S. Immigration officials are quick to point out that, since Oct. 1, 1990, their agency has hired more than 450 new inspectors, bringing the total--as of Jan. 23, 1992--to 1,745, an increase of about 35% in less than two years.

“We recognize that we need more inspectors, which is why we’re adding staff,” Austin said. “Based on the anticipated flow of international traffic in the United States, we think the increase in inspectors will be enough for us to stay within the 45-minute clearance time span.”

LAX currently employs about 200 immigration inspectors, up from about 170 since Oct. 1.

“The increase in manpower has helped, and it’s a rare exception when we don’t clear a flight within 45 minutes,” said Robert Moschorak, district director for U.S. Immigration at LAX. “Prior to Oct. 1, there were significant delays--from one to 2 1/2 hours--caused by lack of manpower and other factors we don’t control, such as too many flights coming in at the same time and passengers not having filled out their forms on the flight.”

According to Moschorak, immigration inspectors handle about 15,000 passengers daily at LAX, increasing to about 18,000 during the peak summer period.

International air travelers pay a $5 immigration inspection fee, but the ATA claims that the money raised by this fee--expected to be nearly $200 million in fiscal 1992 (ending Sept. 30)--is not being sufficiently used for expanding the inspection staff.

Accordingly, the legislative package also includes a proposal that would require U.S. Immigration to allocate at least 80% of its revenues on inspectors’ salaries and equipment.

The trade groups are also asking for creation of more immigration pre-inspection stations overseas to lessen possible delays at airports in the United States. Pre-inspection would mean no stateside inspection for travelers arriving from these stations abroad. In fiscal 1990, almost 20% of the 50 million international passenger arrivals by air were inspected before departing for the United States, according to immigration statistics.

Currently, U.S. Immigration has pre-inspection stations at seven sites in Canada, and one each in Ireland (Shannon Airport), the Bahamas, Bermuda and Aruba. Pre-inspection stations are expected to be set up at Heathrow and Gatwick airports in London by late this summer. Under consideration are pre-inspection sites in Brussels, Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Rome.

“We haven’t endorsed any of these proposals,” said Austin, “but we’re in agreement that something needs to be done.”

The proposals were also supported by Gunther Eser, director of the International Air Transport Assn., a group representing carriers worldwide.

“Airlines all over the world have long been concerned that their passengers arriving in the United States are faced with long delays while awaiting processing by immigration officers,” Eser said.

Meanwhile, immigration is evaluating possible use of new “smart card” technology, currently being tested in the Netherlands. Under this system, passenger information is placed on a chip embedded on the card, along with a digitized fingerprint. At the airport, passengers insert their card into a special card-reading machine, while also putting a flesh fingerprint on a panel of glass within the machine. The machine matches up the flesh fingerprint with the digitized one.

“The whole idea is to have the machine do the work and to minimize human monitoring,” Norton said.