FEDERAL FLIGHT SCREENERS TO STAY AIRPORT OPERATORS SAY SYSTEM WORKS IN SOCAL.

Byline: Lisa Friedman Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON - Despite a congressman's contention that operators of nearly a quarter of the nation's airports no longer want government employees screening passengers and baggage, officials at Southern California airports say they have no plans to return to a private security force.

When Congress created the Transportation Security Administration in the wake of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, and ordered it to replace airlines' privately employed screeners with better-paid, better-trained workers, it also gave airports the option of returning to private screeners on Nov. 19 of this year.

Officials with Los Angeles International, Ontario International, Bob Hope at Burbank and Long Beach/Daugherty Field airports each said they are satisfied with the TSA screeners, but will closely watch other airports that privatize the work and may someday consider a switch.

``We have experienced a great working relationship with the TSA. This relationship has been established since the very first day that TSA set up operations,'' said Nancy Castles, spokeswoman for the city's Los Angeles World Airports agency, which owns Los Angeles and Ontario International airports.

At Bob Hope Airport - operated by a joint-powers agency of the cities of Burbank, Glendale and Pasadena - spokesman Victor Gill added, ``Generally, we've had a very good experience. There's no active plan to change horses.''

Sharon Diggs-Jackson, a spokeswoman for Long Beach Airport, also said the TSA system is working well, and operators are not exploring a change.

Last month Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., chairman of the House Transportation Aviation Subcommittee, announced that airport operators across the country were unhappy with the federal screening system. He predicted those at 100 airports would ask to opt out of the system this fall.

Predicting a summer travel season meltdown, Mica told a recent hearing the TSA cannot keep up with hiring and other problems at the nation's 429 commercial airports.

``TSA, from Washington, is not able to staff the positions or conduct background checks or deploy people according to airline schedules,'' he said. ``It's impossible. Theyll never get it right.''

But Jim Berard, spokesman for Rep. Jim Oberstar, D-Minn., noted that Mica has long objected to the federal screener system and, from the beginning, wanted security to be handled by private contractors with federal oversight.

Oberstar, who led the push for federal screeners after the 9-11 attacks, is generally satisfied with TSA but thinks there are still a few kinks in the system, Bernard said.

He added that he operators of most airports, after watching the federal agency get off to a rocky start, increasingly approve of the federal system.

Pam Shepherd, spokeswoman for the Airports Council International in North America, which represents airport operators, said officials at five airports that had been using private screeners under a government pilot program intend to keep the privatized system. Those airports are in San Francisco; Kansas City, Mo.; Rochester, N.Y.; Jackson, Wyo.; and Tupelo, Miss.

In Southern California, airport officials say uncertainty about who would pay for screening equipment and personnel makes it too difficult even to consider switching back to private screeners. The TSA is working up guidelines on returning to a private screening force, and a report is due out this summer.

Even if airports return to using private screeners, lawmakers and aides noted, they still would have to meet the new federal training and education standards and would be supervised by the TSA.

Lisa Friedman, [phone]

lisa.friedman(at)langnews.com