NEW BAGGAGE SCREENING OK'D SYSTEM WILL GET BOB HOPE TRAVELERS OFF SIDEWALK.

Byline: Alex Dobuzinskis Staff Writer

BURBANK - Bob Hope Airport will end sidewalk luggage inspection after the Thanksgiving rush, when a $3 million conveyor system will be linked to new screening machines, officials said Monday.

The approval of the conveyor system by a 7-0 vote of the airport's governing body ensures that four screening machines, valued at $8 million, will be retained at the Burbank airport by the federal Transportation Security Administration.

With the new system, ``people won't be lining up on the sidewalk when they have their bags inspected,'' said Charles Lombardo, president of the airport commission.

``We don't have the widest sidewalks, so that will move people indoors, which should ... allow better processing and much more efficient use of the space in front of the terminal,'' he said.

The airport has had baggage inspection on the sidewalk since after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, when federal officials called for stepped-up inspection.

Before the attacks, 5 percent of luggage was screened for explosives, but that was increased to 100 percent with new regulations that went into effect in January 2003, said Nico Melendez, spokesman for the TSA.

To accommodate the new screening system, the airport undertook a $30 million renovation completed last July that added 40,000 square feet of space. The baggage inspection machines will be behind the walls of the ticket counters and toward the runways, bringing them away from the public, officials said.

Security screeners at the airport now go over baggage with electronic wands used to scan bags for traces of explosives. The CTX machines the airport is installing use similar technology as the CT scan used by doctors, said Victor Gill, a spokesman for the airport authority.

After the system is installed, ``the public will be assured that this airport has (a) state-of-the-art scanning system. It will be on par with any airport in the country,'' said Victor Gill, a spokesman for the airport authority.

Departing passengers arriving at the airport now either have their bags inspected on the sidewalk and then carted into the airport by an attendant, or they take the bags in themselves to the ticket counter, where screeners also check the luggage.

After the new system is installed and is ready to go following the Thanksgiving travel rush, passengers will still be able to drop their bags off with attendants at either place, officials said.

``They'll still have the same two options that they have now, it's just that the bags will be screened away from where all the public congestion is,'' said Commissioner Joyce Streator.

The airport already has an older model CTX scanning machine operating in Terminal B.

Additional costs beyond the installation of the conveyor belts, including the need to hire an ombudsman for the project, will bring the total cost of getting the new screening system up and running to $3.4 million, Gill said.

Alex Dobuzinskis, [phone]

alex.dobuzinskis(at)dailynews.com