Security project at LAX sees delays, increased costs

An ambitious security enhancement at Los Angeles International Airport, considered necessary in part to reduce lines and thus protect passengers from terrorist attacks, is experiencing lengthy delays and will cost more than 2 1/2 times initial estimates, documents show.

Officials hope that installing truck-size explosives detection machines in a system that ferries bags from ticket counters to waiting airplanes will shorten queues in terminal lobbies. That’s important from a security perspective because those lines, experts say, provide an attractive target for terrorists.

The project is designed to remove the machines from lobbies both to free up space for passengers and speed screening of checked baggage. But the new system is proving more difficult than expected to install.

Officials estimated in 2003 that redoing the conveyors at LAX and LA/Ontario International Airport would cost $342 million and take four years to design and build. The current price tag is $873 million, and the project is expected to take until 2010. The city’s airport agency and the federal government are also embroiled in a dispute about who should pay for the lion’s share of the new system.

Despite the conflicts, construction began earlier this year at Ontario and in LAX’s Tom Bradley International Terminal. The Board of Airport Commissioners is scheduled to take up the issue today, and it could approve a new contract to install the explosives detection system in terminals on LAX’s north side.

Airport officials attribute the delay and cost increases to evolving federal security requirements and a miscalculation by a federal contractor of how much room new baggage networks that include explosives detection equipment -- known as in-line systems -- would need.

“This is like doing an in-line system for nine airports -- no two terminals are the same,” said Paul Haney, deputy executive director of airports and security for Los Angeles World Airports, referring to LAX.

New baggage systems are among many efforts undertaken by the city after 9/11 to fortify the world’s fifth-busiest airport, which is regarded as the state’s No. 1 terrorist target and has been singled out by Al Qaeda. Los Angeles World Airports, which operates LAX and Ontario as well as facilities in Van Nuys and Palmdale, has spent $274 million on security improvements since the 9/11 attacks through June.

At LAX, the complex project requires a builder to rip out three miles of 1960s-era bag belts, while making sure that 150,000 bags are delivered to the proper flights each day. LAX handles more luggage than any other U.S. airport.

The project is necessary to remove 3-ton explosives detection machines, which were installed in terminal lobbies in 2002 to comply with a federal mandate that airports screen all checked bags. The equipment occupies about 40% of the scarce space near LAX’s ticket counters, creating longer, more dense queues.

“Crowds out on sidewalks and in lobbies are a security threat. We don’t expect ever to eliminate that, but we expect to minimize that,” said Larry Fetters, security director at LAX for the federal Transportation Security Administration.

In-line systems at other U.S. airports have “opened up the lobbies substantially and allowed them to stretch out the lines, so they aren’t as dense and compact and move people through more quickly,” he added.

Airport officials said that LAX was one of the first major U.S. airports to comply with federal laws requiring the screening of all checked luggage and that although the new system will be more convenient for passengers at the airport, it will not increase the safety of bags on airplanes.

“The effectiveness of the screening won’t change, because we’re already screening all checked luggage with the most modern explosives detection technology,” said Samson Mengistu, the airport agency’s acting executive director.

If the city’s airport commissioners award a $192-million contract to Swinerton Builders today, construction could begin to replace bag belts in Terminals 1, 2 and 3 this summer. The project involves erecting a building in a garden area between Terminals 1 and 2 to house the new integrated system, and reworking outbound conveyors in all three terminals. Officials expect construction on in-line systems on the airport’s south side terminals to begin next spring.

At LAX overall, the existing system runs at only one speed, but the new one will be computerized, enabling officials to scan about three times more bags an hour. This will free up security screeners who monitor explosives detection machines to inspect airport employees’ belongings and to help at security checkpoints.

Even as construction starts, city officials are arguing with the TSA about who should pay for it. In 2003, the federal government said it would reimburse the city’s airport agency 75% of the initial project estimate, or about $256 million. In 2005, the city submitted a revised bill to the TSA, saying the systems at LAX and Ontario would cost $485 million and the reimbursement should be $378 million, according to a recent report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

The cost has now climbed to $873 million, and airport officials argue that because the TSA approved the revised designs for the two airports, the city should be reimbursed 75% of the new amount.

But in its report to Congress, the GAO found that the federal government was not required to increase funding for the LAX and Ontario projects.

“TSA has no obligation to amend the [agreement] or to reimburse the city of Los Angeles for any additional costs,” the GAO wrote in the 35-page report. “TSA officials have stated that the agency does not have plans for such reimbursement.”

Even if it doesn’t receive additional funding from the TSA, the city will be able to use, and take out bonds against, federal funds generated by a tax on passengers’ tickets, officials said.

jennifer.oldham@latimes.com