New Rules Are Applied Unevenly

At a barbecue restaurant inside the Dallas airport, cooks are cutting meat with a pancake flipper. A Native American crafts store in the Minneapolis airport has stopped selling arrowheads and toy bow-and-arrow sets. In Reno, toenail clippers and corkscrews are being confiscated.

Los Angeles International Airport has banned all private vehicles from in front of the terminals. But cars are still permitted at Ontario International, so long as the drivers are quick. In St. Louis, sedans are allowed, but vans and campers are not.

In the eight days since four U.S. airline jets were hijacked by terrorists armed with short knives and box cutters, new security measures have been implemented by airports, airlines and the federal government. After air travel resumed this week with 80% of scheduled flights, passengers across the country have encountered security restrictions that vary widely.

Overall, fliers are resigned, confused and nervous. Flight attendants are increasingly concerned, with many saying they don’t feel safe and some declining to work. The federal government says it is expanding the Sky Marshals program that places armed agents on airplanes, but declines to say how much.

On Sept. 12, the Federal Aviation Administration announced that airlines and airports would have to meet new, stringent security requirements before they could receive permission to resume operations. These included no curbside check-in, restricting traffic in boarding areas to ticketed passengers and more random identification checks of people in airport areas.

The result, according to interviews with air transport officials and passengers at more than a dozen airports, is a hodgepodge of new rules and restrictions being unevenly implemented. Though all airports appear to be meeting the minimum requirements established by the FAA, some have instituted more extensive measures than others.

“We need to rethink our whole security plan and put in measures nationwide,” said Charlie LeBlanc, managing director of Air Security International in Houston. “It shouldn’t be different whether you’re flying from LAX or San Jose or Boston or Beaumont, Texas.”

Aviation security is a shared responsibility in the United States. The FAA sets and enforces security standards, airlines are responsible for screening passengers and their baggage, and local airports--many of which have their own police departments--oversee the security of buildings, runways, roads and other facilities.

FAA spokesman Paul Takemoto said the new procedures are being uniformly applied throughout the country.

“As far as I know, things are going well,” Takemoto said. “I haven’t heard anything about it being uneven.”

Security at the three major airports serving New York City are at the highest levels ever, said Ralph Tragale, spokesman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. “You will notice extra security. It will be visible and more visible than you ever noticed before. The security is very aggressive and will remain aggressive. But we are not going to apologize about our security measures.”

Pastor’s Passport Checked 4 Times

At some airports, passengers say they barely notice any changes.

“It’s the same as every other time I’ve flown,” said Kristin Korell, flying out of John Wayne Airport in Orange County to her home in Denver.

Carlos Uribe, a Christian pastor and missionary who lives in Mexico, had a different experience flying out of San Francisco. He had his passport checked four times.

“I don’t mind,” Uribe said. “I understand the problem and I’m willing to do what I have to do.”

The most aggressive security measures deployed since last week’s terrorist attacks involve the banning of any sort of cutting instrument, no matter how minor.

“We are confiscating anything that resembles a knife,” Reno/Tahoe International Airport spokesman Adam Mayberry said. “We’ve confiscated lots and lots of scissors, fingernail filers, toenail clippers, corkscrews.”

Airports are prohibiting the use of metal knives, not only by diners in concourse restaurants but by the employees.

“They took all our knives, but we’ve kind of learned to work around it,” said Candace Brooks, manager of Dickey’s barbecue restaurant at Dallas / Fort Worth International. “We’re using one of those things you flip pancakes with. It doesn’t slice barbecue very well--it just kind of breaks up the meat--but it’s the only thing we can use.”

Amed Omar, manager of the O’Brien’s Restaurant and Bar at Chicago’s O’Hare, said his operation has been forced to stop selling the prime steaks that the flagship in Chicago’s Old Town neighborhood is famous for.

“We had to eliminate some of the menu items that had to be cut or prepared here, like romaine lettuce,” Omar said. “We no longer get whole romaine lettuce, only cut lettuce. Some of the steaks we had to eliminate. With chicken, we switched to pre-cut chicken.”

In Minneapolis, metal knives were removed from concourse restaurants in a security sweep, spokeswoman Amy von Walter said. When a metal serrated butter knife was found Sunday night in one eatery, airport officials ordered three planes emptied of their passengers.

“We asked people to exit security and reenter,” Von Walter said. “Better safe than sorry.”

Elsewhere at the Minneapolis airport, management of three souvenir shops removed sharp-edged, Native American souvenirs and small pocket knives from store shelves to adhere to the tightened FAA guidelines.

Sentiments Vary Among Travelers

Passengers interviewed across the country Tuesday had mixed sentiments, but several said the searches seemed less intense and less vigorous as the day passed.

Gary Coit flew in to San Diego International Airport from Phoenix with a huge carry-on bag. He was surprised that it wasn’t searched before he boarded his Southwest Airlines flight.

But Army Sgt. Dave Cruse said inspectors thoroughly hand-searched his carry-on bag and three pieces of checked luggage before he left Spokane, Wash.

“I didn’t notice a whole lot different, just that they searched my bags,” Cruse said. “Apart from that, it was normal. I was not scared at all.”

In San Francisco, Jim Robertson, a salesman with SEI Investments Inc., was not impressed by the increased security measures.

“The people who inspect your bags and who are responsible for your safety are the people being recruited by McDonald’s and Burger King,” Robertson said. “You’re not talking about highly trained people. It’s a different thing in Europe. It’s a different job there, and it doesn’t go to the lowest bidder.”

Some flight attendants aren’t impressed, either.

“We’ve heard from some members that it’s not all it should be,” said Patricia Friend, president of the Assn. of Flight Attendants, which has 50,000 members.

Dottie Malinsky, a 35-year veteran flight attendant for Northwest Airlines, said everyone she knows is back at work--and giving mixed reviews of security. “I heard everything from ‘I don’t think anything is different’ to ‘I was glad to see they stopped me because I had a wine opener with a knife on it.’ ”

On Thursday, a Northwest Airlines flight crew at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix deliberately violated airport security--smuggling in a corkscrew and pocketknife--to show how lax airport security is. Another member of the crew entered a secure location without proper identification.

The FAA is investigating the incident. Airport spokeswoman Sonya Pastor said the airline, not the airport, is responsible for its own security.

Some flight attendants feel the new security procedures don’t go far enough. Their union has been calling for the government to take over passenger screening from the airlines, which now contract low-wage security workers to do the job.

The screeners have their own complaints.

“They’re not having meetings to explain the new procedures,” said Javier Gonzales of the Service Employees International Union, which represents hundreds of screeners at LAX. “What we hear is they’re getting [the information] from their co-workers. So far, everything’s being winged.”

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Times staff writers Ralph Frammolino, Ray Herndon, Karen Kaplan, Scott Martelle, Seema Mehta, Stuart Pfeifer, Alex Pham, Charles Piller, Phil Willon, Janet Wilson, Kimi Yoshino and Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar contributed to this story.