LAX Security Concerns Aired

Even though many said they were unaware of Mayor James K. Hahn’s new security-centered alternative for renovating Los Angeles International Airport, airline employees and others concurred Tuesday that security should be a central facet of the $12-billion plan.

Speaking at the first public hearing on the expansion plan since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, pilots and flight attendants said there are still holes in security at the world’s third-busiest airport that must be addressed in any plan to modernize the facility.

“The front door of the airport has been locked and deadbolted,” said Holly Hightower, vice president of the Los Angeles chapter of the Assn. of Flight Attendants. “But the back door is swinging in the wind.”

Hightower suggested that screening checkpoints be constructed on the airfield and that all employees such as aircraft mechanics, baggage handlers and others be required to pass through them on their way to work. She added that all domestic baggage should be screened before it’s placed in aircraft cargo holds.

Jon Russell, a spokesman for the Airline Pilots Assn., agreed, adding that his major concern is that a “bomb will get on an airplane.”

In an interview before the hearing, Hahn defended his proposal despite the fact that his office and airport planners have yet to release any of the plan’s details.

“I’m a member of the public just like everyone else,” Hahn said. “This is an idea. I’m outlining broad principles. It’s not about expansion anymore; there won’t be any new gates, and we’ll look at a new security check-in to the east of the airport.”

About 46 people spoke at the Luminarias Restaurant in Monterey Park. The event, the first of six public hearings to be held on the master plan in the next 10 days, was rescheduled after last month’s attacks. They are part of a public comment period on the 12,000-page plan and its accompanying environmental studies that began in January. The comment period will end Nov. 9.

Many themes that emerged during the first set of public hearings held on the master plan in June in communities around the airport appeared again at the sparsely attended event.

Some speakers backed a regional approach that would spread the predicted doubling of passengers in Southern California by 2025 among the region’s dozen airports. Others spoke about jobs that would be created by expanding LAX.

Hahn, who said during his campaign that he opposed the expansion plan supported by his predecessor, Richard Riordan, first articulated his vision for modernizing the 41-year-old facility on Oct. 8.

He outlined what he called a fifth option to be added to the current plan that would focus on security. Some have criticized this approach, saying it might not be legal to piggyback on the current plan.

This plan would feature a separate facility--perhaps somewhere east of the airport near the San Diego Freeway--where passengers would check their bags and go through security and then take a high-speed people-mover to the airport.

Air traffic controllers on Tuesday urged that airport officials not forget about the airport’s safety record in the rush to make security improvements.

“When air traffic returns to normal, the problems that existed at LAX before Sept. 11 will return,” said Mark Benner, a controller at LAX. “How much longer can we be in or near the top in the number of runway incursions and continue to be lucky?”