Panel OKs Pacts to Study LAX Changes

The city Airport Commission approved several contracts Tuesday with consultants who will study how to remodel Los Angeles International Airport to comply with an aviation security law approved by Congress last fall.

The contracts are part of a series of agreements the airport agency plans to reach, totaling about $6 million, to satisfy a new aviation security law. A key component of that law requires all airports to have plans by Dec. 31 to screen all baggage for explosives.

The airport agency hopes to get a head start by drawing up its plans now and submitting them to the new federal Transportation Security Administration, rather than waiting for the fledgling agency to issue its own guidelines.

“We have taken a very proactive approach, instead of waiting and hearing what the TSA wants to do,” said Kim Day, an executive director at the airport agency.

“They have a very daunting task, looking at every airport in America,” Day said. “We think we know LAX best.”

Consultants hired by the airport agency will help devise an interim solution to meet the Dec. 31 deadline for baggage checks.

This plan will incorporate several screening methods including explosive-detection machines, bomb-sniffing dogs and hand-searching bags, Day said.

Sometime in the next year, Los Angeles World Airports expects to shift the bulk of the responsibility for bomb detection to the massive explosive-detection machines.

Officials at Los Angeles World Airports calculate that it will take 124 explosive-detection machines to meet federal mandates.

That’s down from the airport’s original estimate of 284 machines, because more efficient screening equipment is expected to be available this year.

The consultants also will study how to increase passenger convenience, shorten lines and accommodate more “meeters and greeters” at facilities operated by the city agency, including Ontario International Airport.

Included in the set of contracts is a $2-million agreement with M. Arthur Gensler Jr. & Associates to study the most efficient, effective way to screen bags at all LAX terminals except the Tom Bradley International Terminal.

In addition to the Gensler contract, approved at an earlier meeting, the Airport Commission voted Tuesday to hire Parsons Brinckerhoff Aviation Inc., which will receive about $600,000 to study these issues in the Tom Bradley International Terminal, and CH2M Hill, which will be paid $1.6 million to conduct similar studies at Ontario International Airport.

The consultants will begin their task by studying how many passengers and bags are screened each hour in each terminal.

Then they will determine how much, and what types of security equipment are needed to accommodate the demand.

They also must decide how to integrate the equipment into existing baggage systems.

At its next meeting on April 16, the commission will consider a fourth contract, with Bechtel/JGM, to review security in the airfield and around the perimeter at LAX. This contract is being negotiated.

The consultant hired to study airport grounds will be asked to consider how goods move from non-secure facilities onto the airfield.

The contract also will ask for an analysis of how the airport can best screen all employees who enter the airfield.