August 29, 2008

Southwest to cut nearly 200 daily flights in January

Southwest Airlines said yesterday that it will cut 196 daily flights while adding just six when it launches its winter schedule on Jan. 11, a more than 5% reduction from its current schedule.

The carrier cited traditionally lower demand and poor weather during winter months as well as a slow economy and high fuel costs. It said some flights potentially could be added back to the schedule in the spring.

Three routes will be dropped: Phoenix-Birmingham, Nashville-Oakland and Nashville-Seattle. The rest of the cuts will result from lowering frequencies. SWA will operate 22 fewer daily departures from Chicago Midway, 13 fewer from Baltimore, 12 fewer from Las Vegas and 10 fewer from both Phoenix and Nashville.

More airports using body-revealing scanners

Program expands as critics say high-resolution images are too invasive

Backscatter X-ray and millimeter-wave imaging technologies that give Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officers the ability to see through passengers’ clothing and look for prohibited objects hidden next to their bodies are being used at an increasing number of U.S. airports.

Voluntary use of the technologies by travelers reportedly has been high, even though the new technologies allow security screeners to see intimate details of passengers' bodies and personal medical items.

A traditional X-ray machine detects hard and soft materials by the variation in radiation passing through an object. Backscatter X-ray units detect the radiation coming back from the person or item being scanned, so in effect they work much more like radar scanners rather than traditional X-ray machines.
“Millimeter Wave technology, another form of body-imaging technology, uses non-ionizing electromagnetic waves to generate an image based on the energy reflected from the body,” the TSA says on its Web site.

In February 2007, the TSA began a backscatter X-ray passenger screening pilot program at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport (PHX). The program was expanded in May to Los Angeles International Airport and last month to New York John F. Kennedy Airport.

Backscatter screening machines generate a narrow, low-intensity X-ray beam that scans a passenger at high speed. The amount of radiation during the scan is equal to 15 minutes of exposure to natural background radiation on a sunny day.

The system “creates an image that looks like a chalk outline of the passenger with threats outlined, but does not reveal facial features," according to Billerica, Mass.-based American Science and Engineering (ASE), manufacturer of the SmartCheck Z Backscatter Personnel Screening System used by the TSA. Additionally, "the SmartCheck systems installed at JFK, LAX and Phoenix Sky Harbor cannot store, export, print or transmit images.”

Backscatter X-ray imaging stops at flesh and is used for secondary screening as an alternative to pat-down searches, and passengers are given the option, explained TSA spokeswoman Lauren Wolf.
“To date, approximately 90 percent of passengers have opted for screening using SmartCheck rather than undergoing a pat-down,” ASE said in May.

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