New Airport Safety Measures Readied

A key component of a Bush administration initiative to make air travel safer will address the largely untested security status of hundreds of thousands of employees at the nation’s airports and airline companies.

According to some security experts, about 800,000 current airport and airline employees did not undergo stringent background investigations before they were hired, and the government now is weighing not only how extensively to review employees, but also who should pick up the bill for scrutinizing baggage handlers, food preparers, ground and cleaning crews and other airport employees.

Such a program could cost more than $1 billion to implement, some experts have said.

Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta will reveal a series of key decisions and recommendations today on how the government aims to improve safety at airports and in the air. While many of the measures could be imposed immediately, others--such as the extensive background checks for employees--may require congressional action.

Some of the new security measures could change the way Americans fly.

A rule limiting carry-on baggage to one piece was imposed Tuesday on passengers flying to and from Reagan National Airport, and that restriction could soon be extended to the flying public across the country.

President Bush, who went to Reagan National on Tuesday to announce that it was being reopened, said that new safety measures are in the works.

“We’re doing the right thing. We’ve taken our time. We can assure the American public . . . that we’re taking the necessary safety precautions,” the president said. “We’re spending a lot of time consulting with local officials to make sure that the security that all of us expect is in place.”

Airlines now set their own carry-on policies, with most allowing passengers to take two bags, plus additional personal items such as a coat or purse.

Flight attendants have long campaigned for a limit on carry-on baggage as a workplace safety issue. They estimate that some 4,000 people a year are injured by bags falling from overhead bins. Until now, airlines have resisted a government-mandated limit for carry-ons, seeing a competitive advantage in letting passengers bring their gear into the cabin.

“We had convenience on Sept. 10 and look at what it brought us,” said Patricia Friend, president of the Assn. of Flight Attendants.

Earlier this week, panels studying airport safety and airline carrier safety gave Mineta recommendations on new safety measures. His office said he is moving quickly to announce which measures should be implemented.

He is expected to approve the development of video surveillance systems inside planes, and require new technology that prevents aircraft identification beacons from being switched off.

Bill Mosley, a Department of Transportation spokesman, said that conducting tougher background checks of airport and airline employees is among the recommendations that Mineta is considering. How extensive--and expensive--those checks will be has not been determined.

One option is to have a law enforcement agency perform the background investigations as part of an even more ambitious proposal to have the government handle airport security, including passenger and baggage screening.

Meanwhile, American Airlines and United Air Lines, whose planes were hijacked by four groups of terrorists on Sept. 11, said they plan to install reinforcing bars on their cockpit doors.

Investigators say the planes that struck the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and the one that ditched in rural Pennsylvania were commandeered after the hijackers gained access to the cockpits and then steered the planes toward designated terrorist targets.

On Capitol Hill, a bipartisan group of senators expressed support for some federal role in passenger and baggage screening. The Senate appeared likely to take up an air security bill within the next few days.

But Republicans in the GOP-controlled House appeared to be sticking with the idea that the screeners should come under federal supervision but remain private employees.

Daya Khalsa, senior vice president of Akal Security, which provides security personnel at federal courthouses around the nation and at the Honolulu airport, estimated that it would cost about $1.6 billion just for thorough background checks on some 800,000 airport and airline employees who he said were not properly scrutinized when they were hired.

Khalsa, a member of the Sikh community in New Mexico, also met last week with Bush to discuss safety measures and problems that members of his religion have experienced since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

In the days after those attacks, four employees at Dulles International Airport were taken into custody, two former Detroit airport employees were arrested, and dozens of others at airports in Denver and Miami were picked up in immigration sweeps.

“All of that is certainly alarming today,” Khalsa said, noting that a good background check by an experienced law enforcement agency or private security company would likely have weeded out many of the problem employees.

“And it’s not cheap to do a good one,” he said, estimating that a thorough review of an applicant’s background could cost between $2,000 and $2,500.

At Dulles, four employees of Middle Eastern descent have been detained on alleged immigration violations since Sept. 11, including two who worked for a private security firm at the airport.

In Detroit, two former employees of a company that provided meals at the airport were arrested on alleged immigration violations after FBI agents found they still had their airport security badges and other documents.

In Denver, 29 undocumented workers from Mexico were seized and deported last month after airport authorities implemented a new security identification system and found that they were using counterfeit credentials and other fraudulent documents.

They were working at airport restaurants and other businesses there, and might have gone undetected had it not been for security measures imposed after the terrorist attacks.

“They were trying to get new badges and had some phony papers, Social Security cards and driver’s licenses,” said airport spokesman Chuck Cannon.

In Miami, federal prosecutors have charged 12 airport workers with using fake immigrant registration and Social Security cards to get airport jobs with outside contractors that gave them security clearance.

But authorities said the arrests were not related to the Sept. 11 attacks or their aftermath.

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Times staff writers Evan Halper and Richard Simon contributed to this report.